CRED - Your very own earned reward through Payment.

Think of the earlier days were buying something was based on a barter scheme in which another product or service of any importance will have to be traded for any good or service to be gained. The device was both cumbersome and lopsided as well. Many of these concerns started to be slowly overcome when fiat money appeared. The magic of credit cards produces a role in those situations, i.e. the art of shopping in advance and paying for it later. We just love to splurge and we love to do so by using credit cards! As of October this year, there were close to 42 million credit cards and 990 million debit cards in the world, according to the Reserve Bank of India. Now, imagine being an app that collects all this data, gives you alerts to make prompt purchases, and even offers you incentives for it. This is where CRED comes in, precisely. This software is a single forum for all of our credit cards to be handled.

Founders

Who doesn't deserve bonuses or rewards? Especially just by paying off your MasterCard bills after you get the incentives! Kunal Shah, FreeCharge's founding parent, recognized the need for sensible software that can not only handle all your MasterCard purchases but also provide you with the easiest incentives for them. And so, in 2018, Shah founded CRED. It is a members-only program that makes it easy for its customers to pay their credit card bills with unique benefits.

The idea behind CRED 

The vision of Kunal Shah was completely different and new. Kunal claims he spent a lot of his time traveling and, oddly enough, researching developing nations after his first FreeCharge company was sold in 2015. The one thing that stood out was that a high degree of confidence was put on people by the system (i.e. the government and government-backed systems): in developing countries, it is normal enough to work out gas stations without attendants and stores without cashiers for self-checkout counters. Therefore, CRED may be a culture in which members are genuinely celebrated and praised for paying their MasterCard bills.

What is CRED App?

CRED is a mobile forum for honoring the country's most creditworthy people. CRED is an app where you connect several credit cards and make transfers via the app itself, which after a few hours will be credited to your wallet. The software is specifically for those with a good credit score (automatically reviewed from Experian or CRIF) and with any experience of payment by Mastercard. After you sign up for the primary time for the service, this is always tested. It sounds too good to be real, but the CRED App has made it easy to receive loyalty points while you pay your MasterCard bills. The startup said that the median credit score of its customer was about 830, and about 30% of its customer base today holds a premium credit card.

CRED App Application 

Adding your Credit Cards to CRED App. Like many cards, as you would like, you can add them. One thing I like about the process of adding cardboard is that it does not lift the 'Valid via' date of the card, CVV number, and PIN; not offering this confidential information ensures the security of added credit cards inside the CRED App. Any time you add a MasterCard, CRED App will deposit Re.1 on the respective card. CRED is an app that provides you with discounts on timely purchases of your MasterCard payment card. If you do not use this tool, you can also use other online ways to pay for MasterCard purchases. All you've got to try to do is to form payments using the CRED app, that’s all. Along with that, the CRED App also will provide the monthly spend analysis to trace your MasterCard expenses.

Vision

"In terms of products, customers, and valuation, the Bengaluru-based startup has moved rapidly. The primary goal is to help members find ways to reduce costs, get better rates on loans, insurance, and investments, and "actually all cash. The app had over 1,000 downloads and a 4.6 ranking on the Google Play Store at the time of publishing. In the past year, CRED has increased its client base to about 5.9 million, or about 20 percent of India's credit cardholder base. The firm claimed growth of more than 5.9 million 'high-trust persons' with a median credit score of 830, thus handling India's 20 percent of all credit card bill payments.

Funding

But it takes a lot of investment for an outstanding venture and thus owned and run by Dreamplug Technologies Pvt Ltd, Cred secured $120 million in Series B funding in August this year, led by fintech fund Ribbit Capital, Gemini Investments of DST Global, but as current investor Sequoia Capital (through its fund SCI Investments V). For a less than a year old Indian company, this was one of the largest funding rounds. For this investment round, the startup's valuation was about $450 million. Besides, the funds are used for overseas expansion in collaboration with banks to produce newer items. In a fresh investment round, it recently raised $81 million and acquired employees' shares worth $1.2 million (about 90 million Indian rupees). The Series C funding round was headed by DST Global.

In five fundraising rounds, the start-up raised $255.5 million. Over 38 brands have collaborated with CRED, including Freshmenu, BookMyShow, AirBnB, Curefit, UrbanLadder, etc.

Despite not currently making much money and hoping to promote personal loans in conjunction with banks and non-banking companies (NBFCs), in the past few months, CRED has become a buzzing sensation, primarily attributable to the IPL, and has fascinated and ignited the imagination of many of the audience.