Cred Purchases Investment Platform Kuvera in Combined Stock and Cash Transaction

• ByStartupStory     |    February 6, 2024

Fintech unicorn Cred announced on Tuesday its intention to acquire the online wealth-management platform Kuvera in a combined cash-and-stock transaction, marking its entry into the wealth-management sector. The specifics of the deal’s size were not disclosed.

“Kuvera is extremely popular among financially savvy Indians. Their products and vision are aligned with Cred’s principle of investing for long-term value creation rather than short-term entertainment,” remarked Kunal Shah, CEO of Cred.

Following the completion of the acquisition, Kuvera’s team and offerings will maintain independent operations while collaborating closely with Cred’s leadership to scale its network, ecosystem, brand, and distribution, according to Cred. The transition will ensure that Kuvera customers’ accounts, portfolios, and ongoing investments continue seamlessly.

Gaurav Rastogi, founder of Kuvera, stated, “Through our engagement with Cred we realized that our core values of transparency, user value, and simplicity align beautifully with each other. Together we see an exciting opportunity to fast-track building new products and features for our community while also bringing a trusted wealth-management solution to millions more.”

Established in 2017, Kuvera boasts approximately three lakh customers and assets under advice of about ₹50,000 crore. However, only around ₹12,000 crore of this sum was invested through the platform, primarily in mutual funds.

Cred, founded in 2018, operates as a rewards-based payments app facilitating credit card bill payments, utility bills, rent, school fees, and more. In FY23, its total income surged to ₹1,484 crore from ₹422 crore in FY22, although its loss widened to ₹1,347 crore from ₹1,279 crore in FY22.

Cred’s diversification efforts also extended to the vehicle-management sector with the introduction of ‘Cred Garage’ last year, offering concierge, parking, and other services to its members.

Cred has made several acquisitions in recent years, including alcohol payment and delivery startup HipBar, corporate expense management platform Happay, and lending service startup CreditVidya. The company is backed by prominent investors such as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global, FalconEdge, and others.

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