Kunal Shah-led fintech platform CRED is in talks to acquire two startups – Dineout and Wint Wealth, as it seeks to expand its offerings to its over 7.5 million users, according to people familiar with the matter.
While Times Internet-owned Dineout helps users discover restaurants and provides discounts and complimentary dishes with the Dineout Passport, Wint Wealth is an alternative investment platform that provides users with better stable returns than a Fixed Deposit but less than the stock market. Wint’s investors include Zerodha’s Rainmatter Capital fund Shah, Better Capital’s Pravin Jadhav, and Raise Financial’s Pravin Jadhav. The Dineout transaction is estimated to be worth $25-50 million, while Wint Wealth could be acquired for around $50 million.
CRED’s talks to acquire these startups comes weeks after it raised $251 million, doubling its valuation to $4 billion in barely six months. It started out in 2018 as a credit-card payment platform rewarding users with points for paying their bills but has since added products such as rent payments and personal loans, as it seeks to become a full-fledged financial services provider.
Dineout was formed by Ankit Mehrotra, Nikhil Bakshi, Sahil Jain, and Vivek Kapoor in 2012 and was acquired by Times Internet Limited within two years in 2014 for $10 million. Miten Sampat, former Chief Strategy Officer of Times Internet who entered CRED last year, served on the board of Dineout until lately. The startup has a business-to-consumer (B2C) offering- where it connects eaters to restaurant discounts & deals, and a business-to-business (B2B) offering, where it helps restaurants with technology and analytics that can help them personalize menus based on user choices.
While CRED has been extending its commerce game by bringing multiple D2C brands on its platform, dining out can be an extra area where its users can transact on the app by using CRED’s wallet or UPI payment methods.
At the same time, Wint Wealth offers retail investors debt instruments traded on the BSE that provide 9-11 percent returns, a better rate than Fixed Deposits. This can potentially open up another investment avenue for CRED’s users.
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CRED Founder Kunal Shah’s LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/kunalshah1
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The Entrepreneur Today Desk