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Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
The hotly debated fintech startup is focusing on monetization, with a rapidly growing loan book, but challenges old and new loom on the horizon.
Editor's note: CRED, serial entrepreneur Kunal Shah’s second fintech venture, has managed to raise $228 million in equity funding in a little over two and a half years. Including $30 million as seed capital six months before it launched in November 2018. The startup, which allows users to pay their credit card bills using its app and earn rewards, focused almost entirely on building its user base of credit-card-using Indians with high credit scores. This is what defined the first 18 months or so of the service, to the point that “What is CRED’s business model?” became a running joke. Starting in mid-2020, though, effort shifted towards monetizing this user base of well-off Indians. The credit card market in India is about 25 million unique users, and CRED's target addressable market (of high credit score individuals) is 10-15 million; it already claims to have 5.9 million users on its platforms, which is about 40%-50%, not quite saturated, but no longer leaving vast room for user growth. According to an industry executive aware of the matter, who asked not to be named, the …
Stories of great outcomes and easy funding kept the sector on its toes. The momentum is expected to continue going into 2026, but startups may need to rethink their strategy.
The well-timed announcement of Zepto’s $450 million funding on the day of Eternal’s September-quarter results foreshadows what the future holds for India’s quick-commerce landscape.
One of the largest-ever funding rounds among the Middle East startups, Carrefour’s latest exits and other updates from the week.
