Voyager Innovations, owner of Maya, said Tuesday it is raising $100 million to $150 million this year to support aggressive expansion.
“There is an effort to raise some money—anywhere between $100 and $150 million,” Voyager chairman Manuel Pangilinan said at the sidelines of the annual stockholders’ meeting of PLDT.
“I think the focus of attention is new stockholders, but I think given market conditions, I think the existing shareholders may have to participate for the portion,” he said.
Pangilinan said PLDT would participate in the fundraising of Voyager.
He also expects Voyager to contribute positively to PLDT in the next two to three years.
“I think recovery will be led by the enterprise part of the business,” Pangilinan said.
Voyager raised $210 million in new funds in April 2022, propelling the company’s valuation to unicorn status at $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.
Other participants in the round are Voyager’s shareholders PLDT Inc., KKR, a global investment firm; Tencent, a leading technology company; International Finance Corp.; and IFC Emerging Asia Fund and IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund, two funds managed by the IFC Asset Management Company, a division of IFC.
When asked about the planned initial public offering, Alfredo Panlilio, president and chief executive of PLDT, said: “The plan eventually is to consider that.”
“First is to really improve the fundamentals,” he said.
Maya is the leading digital banking app in the country with 1.5 million bank customers and P14.7 billion in deposit balances as of end-2022.