Kunal Shah (born 20 May 1979) is an Indian entrepreneur who founded two well-known fintech companies. FreeCharge, started in 2010, let people recharge mobile phones online and was sold to Snapdeal in 2015 in one of the largest Indian start-up deals of the time. In 2018 he founded CRED, an app that rewards people for paying their credit card bills on time. He is also one of India’s most active angel investors and a widely followed thinker on start-ups.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Kunal Shah |
| Born | 20 May 1979, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Age | 47 |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, angel investor |
| Known for | Founder of FreeCharge and CRED |
| Education | Wilson College, Mumbai (B.A. Philosophy) |
| Based in | Bengaluru |
Early Life
Shah grew up in a Gujarati business family in Mumbai. When the family business ran into trouble he began working as a teenager, doing data entry, delivering goods and running a cybercafé. He studied philosophy at Wilson College because its morning classes left the rest of the day free for work. He started an MBA at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and dropped out.
Career
He first worked at a business-process outsourcing firm, where he started PaisaBack, a cashback promotion platform for retailers. In August 2010 he and Sandeep Tandon launched FreeCharge. Customers who recharged their prepaid phones on the site received discount coupons of equal value, so the recharge felt free. Sequoia Capital invested, and in April 2015 Snapdeal bought the company for about $400 million. Shah left in 2016; Snapdeal later sold FreeCharge to Axis Bank for a fraction of that price.
After two years of advising and investing he founded CRED in Bengaluru. Only people with a high credit score can join; they earn “CRED coins” for paying card bills through the app, which can be exchanged for offers. The company became known for humorous advertisements featuring 1990s celebrities such as Rahul Dravid. It has since added lending, rent payments, UPI payments and vehicle services, and has been valued at several billion dollars, though it has been questioned over its losses.
Shah has put his own money into more than 200 start-ups, including Razorpay, Unacademy and Spinny.
Ideas
His “Delta 4” theory says a product succeeds only if it is at least four points more efficient, on a ten-point scale, than what it replaces; then people will not go back and will tell others. He often writes about how low trust and scarce time shape the behaviour of Indian consumers.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Kunal Shah born?
Kunal Shah was born on 20 May 1979 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India and is 47 years old.
What is Kunal Shah known for?
Known for: Founder of FreeCharge and CRED.
Featured image: Kunal Shah, then head of FreeCharge. Photo by Kaustubha Dahibhate, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
