WhatsApp will now be headed by Cred founder Kunal Shah, starting as early as this week, the messaging platform announced, marking the elevation of the serial fintech entrepreneur to the leadership of the world’s largest messaging platform.

WhatsApp parent Meta, which also owns Instagram and Facebook, will invest $900 million (around ₹8,550 crore) in Cred as a part of this hire, enabling Cred to move forward with ESOP buybacks.

As Cred’s chief executive officer, a post that will be held on an interim basis by senior executive Miten Sampat, Mr. Shah oversaw the service’s growth to a user base that covered over a third of India’s credit card bill payments, targeting the most affluent Indians.

“Meta’s $900M minority investment is a booster in our plans to build an enduring institution with an eventual public listing,” Mr. Sampat said on X, formerly Twitter. “Meta will be a passive financial investor with no-access to customer data.”

While WhatsApp has over three billion users globally, a plurality in India, the firm is yet to seriously monetise that access. That’s where Mr. Shah comes in. In a statement, he indicated that his role would be to move the platform to that stage. “While [the app has] come very far, the delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive,” Mr. Shah said on X.

Will Cathcart, who has led WhatsApp for seven years, and taken public and vocal positions on the app’s commitment to end-to-end encryption and holding spyware makers who target the application accountable, will remain at Meta in other roles, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Facebook.

“Kunal built CRED into one of India’s most important technology companies, and he brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Before founding Cred, Mr. Shah founded startups like PaisaBack, focused on cashbacks in 2009; and FreeCharge, a mobile wallet that was acquired by Snapdeal in 2015. He has been an angel investor on the back of the ballooning valuations of his past ventures, and has taken stakes in firms across the fintech ecosystem like Razorpay.