THE INCREDIBLE MASTERMIND

There is something about Kunal Shah—the entrepreneur and now a start-up investor—that just clicks. Be it his unique approach to solving problems that nobody notices, or his thoughts on entrepreneurship which makes him such a popular figure on social media.

- Debroop Roy

Having exited his most successful venture FreeCharge with a $400 million sale in 2015 to the then e-commerce heavyweight Snapdeal, Shah served in varying capacities including as an adviser at venture capital firm Sequoia, before he came upon the idea of CRED, a platform designed for those with a credit card and a credit score of 750 or above. Founded in 2018, the company has already been making a name for itself around the startup ecosystem and beyond. With a members-only app, it currently enables users to pay their credit card bills on time and earn rewards for ‘good behaviour’ but according to the founder, the larger aim is to systematically build a community for various transactions.

“It looked like an interesting problem to solve,” says Shah.

In the last couple of decades, multinational corporations and more recently home-grown companies have tried to solve the issue for several million users who are still underserved in terms of access to physical and digital infrastructure. From Google’s next billion users initiative to Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious plan with Jio, that segment has well and truly become the hunting ground for companies looking to move past the obvious barrier that comes with scale.