Voyager Innovations, the owner of Philippines’ payment and financial services app PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, announced today it has raised $210 million, bringing its valuation to $1.4 billion.
The round was led by SIG Venture Capital, and included participation from EDBI and First Pacific Company, as well as returning shareholders PLDT, KKR, Tencent, International Finance Corporation and IFC Emerging Asia Fund and IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund.
The funds will be used to launch Maya Bank services, including savings and credit products, through PayMaya, which has over 47 million registered users and is one of the most popular financial apps in the Philippines, along with GCash and Coins.
Voyager also plans to add cryptocurrency, micro-investments and insurance products to PayMaya, which already includes a digital wallet, online remittances, bill payments, bank transfers, prepaid cards and an e-commerce feature called PayMaya Mall.
Voyager’s last round of funding was in July 2021, when it raised $167 million in preparation for launching its neobank.
At the time of that announcement, Voyager said it had applied for a digital bank license with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines’ central bank. According to the BSP, about half of the adult population in the country is unbanked, but it has set a goal of onboarding 70% of Filipino adults to payment or transaction accounts by 2023.
Maya Bank secured one of six digital banking licenses from the BSP in September 2021 and started pilot testing Maya Bank in March 2022.