Cred Closes $180M Acquisition Deal for Expense Management Firm Happay

Credit cards payment firm Cred is acquiring corporate expense management firm Happay in a cash and stock deal valued at $180 million, according to multiple reports. The move gives Cred entree to the enterprise spending space.

Happay will continue operations as a separate entity but will regularly interface with Cred leadership to “leverage its ecosystem, build distribution, expand the product offering and drive scale,” Cred said in a press note to Business Insider.

Moving into corporate expense management was a natural proposition for Cred, according to CEO Kunal Shah. He said in the media statement that the company focused on solving the pain points of credit card management and has experienced fast growth in the past three years.

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Newtap Technologies — Cred’s investment arm — acquired alcohol delivery startup HipBar in October and Parfait Finance & Investment in November. Following a $251 million Series E funding round in October, Cred had an estimated valuation of $4 billion.

Launched in 2018 in Bengaluru, Karnataka India, Cred has applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a payments aggregator license that would enable merchants to accept digital payments from multiple platforms without individual service providers.

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Founded in 2012 by Varun Rathi and Anshul Rai, and headquartered in Whitefield, Karnataka, India, Happay’s platform manages business expenses, payments, and travel details for more than 6,000 businesses. It also manages work-related expenses for over one million users worldwide with an estimated $1 billion in yearly spends, and generates three million expense reports annually.

“Happay software stack and in-house payment engine, along with its ease of use, will complement the card management experience that CRED members enjoy for their personal expenses. It is the only unified platform that automates the spend management workflow, a trend that is set to explode in a contactless, paperless world, while ensuring compliance and visibility with an end-to-end audit trail,” Happay said.

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