Cred, a Tiger Global-backed fintech unicorn, announced on Tuesday that it will acquire a 100 per cent stake in CreditVidya, a lending-based big data company, for an undisclosed sum in cash and stock.

CreditVidya’s acquisition comes roughly two months after the Kunal Shah-led unicorn announced its intention to acquire a minority stake in its Mumbai-based lending partner LiquiLoans. It acquired expense management startup Happay in December and liquor delivery startup HipBar in October of last year.

The acquisition enables Cred to broaden its customer base and ecosystem as CreditVidya, which serves customers without a credit score.

Agarwal and Rajiv Raj founded CreditVidya in Hyderabad in 2012. It provides a platform as a service that allows businesses to embed customised credit products. The company has raised approximately $10 million in funding since its inception and was last valued at $30 million.

The two companies will continue to operate independently as a result of the acquisition. CreditVidya’s 200+ team members will receive all of the same benefits as Cred team members, including the company’s employee stock-option programme.

Cred, founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Kunal Shah, began as an app that allows users to pay credit card bills and rewards them with “Cred” coins that can be redeemed across many partner businesses. Since then, the company has expanded into lending and e-commerce.

Last month, the company launched ‘Scan and Pay’ under the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, foraying into the larger payments business to compete with PhonePe, GooglePay (Gpay), Paytm, and the government-backed Bhim UPI mobile applications, among others.

Among its backers are Singaporean wealth fund GIC, Tiger Global, FalconEdge, Sofina Ventures, Insight Partners, Coatue, and Dragoneer.

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