CRED, which offers easy credit card payments to members and has built a community of individuals with high credit scores, has raised $81 million in its Series C round at a post-money valuation of $ 806 million.

Share Market Live

NSE

Existing investor DST Global led the round, along with Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst. In addition, Sofina, Coatue and Satyan Gajwani of Times Internet also invested in this round.

The company has also initiated an ESOP buyback program just two years into the company’s operations.

Existing and former employees have liquidated their ESOPs, collectively worth $ 1.2 million (Rs. 9 Crore), in the buyback, which was completed on January 01, 2021, the company said. This is the first ESOP liquidity program initiated by CRED. Employees who hold vested stocks were eligible to sell up to 50 percent of their vested ESOP shares in the company.

CRED now has a community of 5.9 million individuals with a median credit score of 830. The company claims that it processes 20 percent of all credit card bill payments in India and that over 35 percent of premium credit cardholders in India are on CRED.

“As we raise funds to support our next phase of growth, it's important to acknowledge the role that employees have played in our success. We are committed to enabling wealth-creation opportunities for them and have allocated 10 percent of our cap-table allocated for ESOPs even at the Series C stage. I am grateful for their conviction, as well as that of our investors, and am focused on creating value for them as the product and business evolve,” Kunal Shah, Founder, CRED, said.

First Published:Jan 4, 2021 1:31 PM IST