- Indian Kunal Shah will now take charge of WhatsApp.
- Shah, founder of Cred, also founded FreeCharge.
- Meta will invest $900 million and take 20% stake in Cred.
- This deal is Meta’s entry into India’s digital payments market.
WhatsApp Kunal Shah: There is going to be a big change for Meta’s famous messaging app WhatsApp. Will Cathcart, who ran WhatsApp for almost seven years, is now leaving this responsibility. His place will now be taken by an Indian Kunal Shah who is the founder of CRED company.
WhatsApp head Will Cathcart gave this information by posting on social media. He wrote that WhatsApp has never been in a stronger position than it is today and that is why he felt that now is the right time to step back. He said that his team brought end-to-end encrypted messaging to more than three billion people and protected the private conversations of people around the world.
who is kunal shah
Some personal news. After nearly 7 years leading WhatsApp, I’m excited to share who will take over the responsibility of delivering simple, reliable, and private messaging for the world. WhatsApp is in the strongest position it’s ever been — and that felt like the right moment to…
— Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) June 22, 2026
Kunal Shah is a resident of Mumbai. In his studies, he did BA in Philosophy and then left MBA midway. In the year 2010, he started a company named Freecharge which was later bought by Snapdeal.
After this, in 2018 he started CRED which gives rewards to people on paying credit card bills. Today CRED is among the most well-known fintech companies of India. Kunal Shah has also invested in more than two hundred startups.
Cathcart praised Kunal Shah, saying that he has made CRED one of the most important tech companies in India and that he really cares about the users.
This leadership change is not just a coincidence. According to media reports, Meta is going to invest about $900 million in Indian fintech startup CRED. After this deal, Meta will get about 20 percent stake in CRED and the value of the company will be around $4.5 billion.
Why is this deal important for India
This deal is big for India in many ways.
Firstly, it shows that a global company like Meta now wants to directly enter India’s digital payment market. Currently, this market is dominated by PhonePe and Google Pay, which together handle about 80 percent of UPI transactions, whereas WhatsApp Pay is still far behind. In such a situation, Meta is trying to create a big digital ecosystem by adding discovery from Facebook and Instagram, commerce from WhatsApp and payment infrastructure from CRED.
Secondly, this is the first time that an Indian founder has got direct command of such a big product of the world’s largest tech company which has more than three billion users.
It is not yet clear whether Will Cathcart will be seen in any other role in Meta or not. The company has not yet given any detailed information on when Kunal Shah will start his formal charge in WhatsApp.
Decision to step down from operating role
It’s been a minute.
2015–2018
– Exited FreeCharge. Spent time learning and investing.
– Pondered about: Why can’t trust be rewarded? Started with $1M of personal capital.
– Launched CRED to reward people for paying credit card bills on time.2019–2025
– Built a system run by a…— Kunal Shah (@kunalb11) June 22, 2026
After becoming the founder of WhatsApp, Cred founder Kunal Shah has decided to step down from the operating role. According to the information, Miten Sampat will now take over the responsibility of interim CEO in his place. Kunal Shah will now continue as a shareholder in Cred. Kunal Shah told that he is now joining Meta and will take over the global leadership of WhatsApp there. Meta has also invested in Cred as a minority investor. However, Meta will not get any access to Cred’s member data.
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