CRED’s plan to acquire Smallcase falls through

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Editor's note: Last year, CRED founder Kunal Shah came up with an ambitious plan to expand the fintech company’s wealth management offerings. He wanted CRED to invest in Smallcase, a seven-year-old stock investment platform backed by India’s leading brokerage, Zerodha, among others. Talks between the firms about a deal—which reportedly would have valued Smallcase as high as $300-400 million—have fallen through after six months of negotiations. The companies couldn’t agree on Smallcase’s valuation, according to five industry executives who were either involved in the deal or tracking it closely. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity. This comes after Vasanth Kamath, Smallcase co-founder and CEO, said recently that news of a deal having been finalized was “not true”. Questions sent to CRED and Smallcase remain unanswered.  CRED has over the past couple of years worked towards building an all-in-one financial app for well-off Indians. To that end, the fintech company has gone from merely allowing users to pay their credit card bills to becoming a platform for lending, investment and managing personal finances. Acquiring Smallcase would have broadened CRED’s user base, …