Voyager Innovations Inc. has to receive fresh funding to maintain its growth momentum through 2022, as it is set to introduce new financial technology (fintech) solutions through its soon-to-be-launched digital bank.
Shailesh Baidwan, president of Voyager, said the group will ask its existing investors to infuse more capital to help the company sustain its momentum.
Filipino telco titan PLDT Inc., American investment company KKR, Chinese fintech giant Tencent, and World Bank-backed International Finance Corp. are major investors in Voyager.
“We have seen good growth across all our businesses—wallet, enterprise, payments, and network. We have sustained continuous growth and we believe that for us to continue our growth, we need to be able to provide an end-to-end system,” Baidwan said.
This, he said, involves new capital for 2022. This may be in the form of fresh funds from existing investors or taking in new ones that could create more value for Voyager.
“For our 2022 and beyond plans, we will be talking to our investors, and as part of that, we will decide on whether we want to keep it internal or get some other investors that would make sense for us to bring [in] as part of the mix. We will see [our] valuation at the next round when we get to it,” Baidwan said.
Voyager is the parent company of PayMaya Philippines, which currently has 41 million users across its consumer platforms that offer digital wallet services. It is also on track to grow its gross transaction value by 50 percent this year and claims to be the “largest payments processor for key industries, including everyday merchants and e-commerce.”
PayMaya also claims to have the most extensive payments touchpoints at 380,000 to date.
By the first quarter of 2022, Voyager will be launching Maya Bank, the digital bank counterpart of PayMaya.
Baidwan painted a rosy outlook for Maya Bank, citing Smart’s 70.56 million subscriber base and its network of small and medium enterprise customers that number to 1.2 million as its advantages.
Maya Bank will offer various banking solutions for both consumers and enterprise clients.
“Maya Bank is going to be an important element [to the end-to-end ecosystem that we are building],” Baidwan said.
PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said he is confident that Voyager will continue to grow beyond 2021, given its growth trajectory and its fundamentals.
“We do hope that starting 2022, it will increase its value with the introduction of Maya Bank and have a higher gross transaction value,” he said.
Voyager, as of its last funding round in June, was valued at $747 million.
Any plans to list Voyager in the Philippine Stock Exchange will be executed within 12 months to 18 months, Baidwan said.
“At this stage, the investors are firmly behind and we want to grow. In the next 12 to 18 months, we will invest to grow the Maya Bank business and that will set us up for a better valuation before an IPO [initial public offering].”