WhatsApp gets new chief as Meta taps India’s CRED founder Kunal Shah, and invests $900M in startup
Key takeaways
- The move comes alongside a Meta-led $900 million financing for Indian fintech giant CRED, structured through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases.
- Under his leadership, WhatsApp expanded beyond private messaging with the launch of products such as Communities, Channels, and AI integrations, while deepening its focus on business messaging.
- But efforts by WhatsApp to push into digital payments have delivered mixed results.
Meta is betting on India for Whats App s next chapter, naming entrepreneur Kunal Shah to lead the messaging app and succeed Will Cathcart, who is stepping down after nearly seven years at the helm to take on a new product-building role at the company.
The move comes alongside a Meta-led $900 million financing for Indian fintech giant CRED, structured through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. The deal will make Meta a minority investor in the CRED, which said Shah will step down as chief executive while retaining his personal shareholding.
India is WhatsApp s largest market, with more than 500 million users accounting for a significant share of the app s global base of over three billion people. The country has also emerged as a key battleground for Meta s ambitions in business messaging and digital payments, areas seen as critical to WhatsApp s next phase of growth.