Indian fintech CRED stated on Tuesday it has raised $251 million in brand new financing spherical, its 0.33 investment this yr, at a valuation of $four.01 billion.
Existing buyers Tiger Global and Falcon Edge Capital co-led the 3 yr-vintage Bangalore-primarily based totally startup’s Series E financing spherical. Marshall Wace and Steadfast additionally participated — and so did present buyers DST Global, Insight Partners, Coatue, Sofina, RTP, and Dragoneer. The startup turned into valued at $2.2 billion in an April spherical this yr and $806 million in a spherical it disclosed in January.
TechCrunch mentioned ultimate week that CRED had finalized a financing spherical currently at a pre-cash valuation of $3.seventy five billion. The outlet additionally mentioned that the startup has held initial talks approximately a brand new spherical, that may price it at approximately $five.five billion. A CRED spokesperson stated at the time that the whole thing withinside the tale turned inaccurate. ($3.seventy five billion pre-cash valuation + $251 million new raise = $four.01 billion post-cash valuations.)
CRED enables and rewards human beings to enhance their credit score rating via way of means of encouraging them to pay their credit score card payments on time. The startup has accumulated over 7. five million contributors. (India has approximately 25 million particular credit score card customers.)
On its app, the startup gives its contributors get admission to a number of top-rated brands. The startup, not like maximum others in India, doesn’t cognizance of the standard TAM of India — masses of tens of thousands and thousands of customers of the world’s second-maximum populated nation — and as a substitute caters to a number of the maximum top rate audiences.
“India has fifty-seven million credit score cards (vs 830 million debit cards) [that] in large part serves the high-quit market. The credit score card enterprise is basically focused on the pinnacle of four banks (HDFC, SBI, ICICI, and Axis) controlling approximately 70% of the full market. This area is extraordinarily worthwhile for those banks – as glaring from the SBI Cards IPO,” analysts at Bank of America wrote in an in the advance report.
“Very few start-ups like CRED are focusing in this high-quit base and [have] taken a platform-primarily based totally approach (collect clients now and search for monetization later). A credit card in India stays an aspirational product. The beneath neath penetration could in all likelihood make certain endured robust increases in coming years. Over time, the form-aspect might also additionally evolve (i.e. pass from plastic card to digital card), however the inherent call for credit score is predicted to grow,” they added.