Cred’s Kunal Shah has made angel investments in close to 80 fintechs till date

Kunal Shah, founder and CEO, CRED

The founder and CEO of fintech unicorn Cred, Kunal Shah said that he has invested in about 80 fintech startups till date, with an average ticket size of $50,000.

“I do not have any mutual funds, or any stocks, I only invest in startups as a way of paying it forward. I don't invest necessarily for financial returns, it's about just helping the system move forward,” said Shah in a conversation with CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan at the Global Fintech Fest 2023, on September 8.

According to data from Tracxn, Shah has been an early backer of the fintech unicorn Razorpay, and other companies like M2P Fintech, Jupiter and Coinswitch.

While earlier, Shah said he would meet startup founders to make investment decisions, he now has discussions over email or WhatsApp and makes his decisions.

“If you can create 1000 high quality founders, and they also learn to pay it forward, it will convert the country from job seekers to job creators. That's going to be an immense moment for us to have,” he added.

To be sure, Shah has held the title of the most active angel investor of the Indian startup ecosystem over the last two years. In December 2022, Moneycontrol reported that the Cred chief once again topped the list of angel investors funding the most deals in a year with 67 investments this year, citing Venture Intelligence data.

However, Shah appeared to be holding back on investments in comparison to last year, when he participated in about 96 deals.

During the session, he shared his bullishness towards new-age financial services startups and said that without such loss-making companies, the Indian fintech ecosystem could not have achieved its current level of growth at a time when the startup ecosystem seems to have shifted its focus from growth to profitability.

“We are used to only industrialists being treated as business people... We need to celebrate risk-takers. Unless we do that, we are not going to break out as a country and I think that is one big change that we need to go through,” Shah added.