'Too young for IPO', CRED to target premium segment growth, says CEO Kunal Shah

Bengaluru, Sep 15 (PTI) Fintech platform CRED has ruled out an initial public offering (IPO) in the immediate future, with Founder and CEO Kunal Shah stating the company is "too young" for public markets and is instead prioritising robust institutional building and expanding its range of offerings for India's affluent, creditworthy consumers.

Acknowledging the inevitability of going public "at the right time", Shah underlined that the firm's immediate focus is on nurturing a trusted financial ecosystem.

"Should a company think about IPO in the right time? The answer is absolutely yes. But at this point of time, I would say we are too young to be thinking about it," Shah told PTI.

CRED has recently completed a USD 75-million Series G fundraise led by Singapore's GIC, and the funds will be deployed to deepen relationships with high-value customers and diversify the suite of products available to them, Shah said.

"When we are looking at the capital, the goal has been consistently on two dimensions -- how do we increase our concentration and market share on users who are credit worthy? "And the second theme is that how do we create more and more products?… we are launching a bunch of new products. And we are trying to deploy the capital kind of focused on growth and expansion of different services and products that we can create for customers," he said.

As part of this roadmap, CRED on Monday launched a slew of new offerings targeting its core user base. It launched a consolidated asset tracking and net worth monitoring tool, aimed at eliminating fragmentation across members' mutual funds, stocks, NPS, fixed deposits, digital gold, and bank balances.

CRED members can now access integrated insights to optimise investments and preserve wealth, a move that the company claims has already prompted a 6-14 per cent increase in investment activity among early users.

Backed by DST Global, RTP Global, Tiger Global, General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital India, and others, CRED reported a 66 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue to Rs 2,473 crore in FY24, while its operating losses narrowed by 41 per cent to Rs 609 crore.

Shah said CRED's future milestones will focus on institutional trust.

"When you play with financial services, you are dealing with the business of trust. Trust means you have to be respected, compliant, and do all the things that are right for the consumers. And we have been focused on that.

"So in terms of milestones, we would love to probably be the most trusted brand when it comes to financial services. We would love to cater to an audience and actually be truly one of the unique products that have come out from India that differentiates itself materially and create a great outcome for our investors," he noted.

CRED also introduced curated portfolios of fixed deposits with multiple RBI-regulated institutions, as well as digital gold that is fully insured and redeemable in physical or jewellery form.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm also launched two new credit cards: the CRED IndusInd Bank RuPay credit card, and Sovereign, an invite-only 18-karat gold card. PTI ANK TRB TRB