Voyager Innovations, the technology firm behind the end-to-end money platform PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, has raised $210 million in new funds, propelling its valuation to unicorn plus status, at US$1.4 billion.
Leading the round is new investor SIG Venture Capital, the Asian venture capital arm of SIG.
Other new investors include Singapore-based global investor EDBI and investment holding company First Pacific Company Ltd. (First Pacific).
Also participating in the round are Voyager's existing shareholders PLDT Inc.; KKR, a global investment firm; Tencent, a leading technology company; International Finance Corporation (IFC); IFC Emerging Asia Fund and IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund, two funds managed by the IFC Asset Management Company (IFC AMC), a division of IFC.
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Voyager will use the new funds to launch Maya Bank services, such as savings and credit, which will be offered seamlessly across PayMaya’s platforms for consumers and enterprises, including micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises or MSMEs.
It will also continue to expand PayMaya’s offering with new products like cryptocurrency, micro-investments, insurance, and more, as the all-in-one money app of the Philippines.
This integrated ecosystem approach uniquely positions Paymaya among e-wallets, banks, and fintech players in the country.
PayMaya is the only fintech serving all segments of consumers and enterprises with a widely used consumer e-wallet app, the leading enterprise payment processing business, and the most extensive on-ground agent network, Smart Padala.
Over the years, PayMaya built the end-to-end rails for this unique ecosystem and now plans to leverage that infrastructure with proprietary applications, especially for launching Maya Bank services such as consumer and merchant credit and savings.
"With this milestone, we are excited to leap forward and bring the best of PayMaya and Maya Bank to help unlock the digital economy for the underserved and unbanked Filipinos,” Orlando B. Vea, Voyager and PayMaya CEO-Founder, stated.
"The strong endorsement from our new shareholders and participation of our existing investors in this fundraising validates the company's ability to expand into neobanking and add new cutting-edge financial products and services," according to Shailesh Baidwan, Voyager and PayMaya President.
"We are excited to bring more game-changing innovations to millions of consumers and MSMEs with our integrated ecosystem as we address the pent-up demand for financial services,” he noted.
"Leveraging PayMaya’s distribution strength with enterprises and consumers, Maya Bank has the potential to be one of the most successful digital banks not just in the Philippines, but globally," Akshay Bajaj, who led the investment for SIG, pointed out.
The Philippines is the fastest-growing market in Southeast Asia, with digital adoption of services reaching tipping points during the pandemic, driven by the demands of a young, digital-savvy population.
The local internet economy grew 94 percent from 2020 to 2021 and is expected to grow to US$40 billion by 2025, powered by growth in e-commerce and strong adoption of e-wallet payments.
However, the Philippines remains a vastly underserved market with half of the adult population remaining unbanked.
About 47 percent of Filipino adults do not have savings, and of those with savings, one in two save via informal means.
Only 1 in 3 adults have loans, of which a mere 18 percent are availing from banks.
The enormous digital financial services opportunity extends to MSMEs.
These businesses account for 99.5 percent of the total establishments and employ 62.8 percent of the entire labor force in the country.
However, access to credit and financial services for MSMEs remains a challenge, with only 24 percent availing of loans or having lines of credit from formal financial institutions.
PayMaya and Maya Bank seek to address these challenges by providing end-to-end services from an integrated ecosystem.
As of end-March 2022, PayMaya had over 47 million registered users across its consumer platforms – more than two-thirds of the adult population in the Philippines.
PayMaya recently introduced cryptocurrency through its e-wallet app after securing a Virtual Asset Services Provider (VASP) license from the BSP.
It is the leading non-bank enterprise payments processor in the Philippines, enabling over 630,000 online and face-to-face touchpoints to accept digital payments from e-wallets and QR to any credit, debit, and prepaid card.
PayMaya’s extensive on-ground presence through its over 63,000 Smart Padala agent touchpoints has allowed it to be embedded in grassroots communities, serving as de-facto financial hubs for the underserved Filipinos.
Voyager entered the digital banking space with Maya Bank, securing one of the six digital banking licenses from the BSP in September 2021 and commencing pilot testing in March 2022.
PayMaya and Maya Bank's thrust will help fast-track the country's goals of transforming 50 percent of the total volume of retail payments to digital and expanding the financially included to 70 percent of Filipino adults by 2023.