Skip to main content

PayMaya owner Voyager Innovation raises $167M from KKR, Tencent and IFC, to launch digital bank in the Philippines

Voyager Innovations, the Manila-based owner of PayMaya, one of the Philippines’ most popular payment and financial services apps, announced today it has raised $167 million in new funding to launch more financial services, including a digital bank.

The raise includes $121 million in new funding, and $46 million from previously committed funds. Voyager announced in April 2020 that it had secured up to $120 million in investment commitments from PLDT, KKR, Tencent, the International Finance Group (IFC) and the IFC Emerging Asia Fund.

The latest capital came from existing shareholders PLDT, one of the country’s largest telecoms, KKR and Tencent, and new investors including IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund, managed by IFC AMC, a member of the World bank Group (another one of Voyager’s investors).

Voyager’s total raised since 2018 now stands at $452 million.

Along with competitors GCash and Coins, PayMaya is one of the most popular financial “super apps” in the Philippines. Its services include a digital wallet, online remittances, bill payments, bank transfers, prepaid cards and an e-commerce feature called PayMaya Mall that connects consumers to 350 merchants.

In its funding announcement today, Voyager said it has applied for a digital bank license with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines’ central bank. A representative for the Voyager said the neobank will launch about six months after Voyager secures its license.

The fintech endgame: New supercompanies combine the best of software and financials

PayMaya has more than 250,000 digital-finance access touchpoints, like convenience stores, where users can top-up their accounts. Voyager says this is seven times the number of ATM and bank branches in the Philippines, making PayMaya more accessible than traditional banks, especially in remote or rural areas.

According to the BSP, about 71% of Filipinos were unbanked as of 2019. The BSP has set financial inclusion goals it wants to achieve by 2023, including onboarding 70% of Filipino adults to payment or transaction accounts, and converting 50% of total retail payments into digital form.

PayMaya and Smart Padala by PayMaya, its remittance service, claim its total registered users doubled over 18 months to 38 million as of June 2021. This year, Voyager also began expanding PayMaya’s services with working capital loans for micro- to mid-sized businesses through PayMaya Lending Corp, and PayMaya Protect insurance policies for health coverage and devices.

Viva Republica, developer of Korean financial super app Toss, raises $410M at a $7.4B valuation



from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3x6tKzC
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thousands of cryptocurrency projects are already dead

Two sites that are actively cataloging failed crypto projects, Coinopsy and DeadCoins , have found that over a 1,000 projects have failed so far in 2018. The projects range from true abandonware to outright scams and include BRIG , a scam by two “brothers,” Jack and Jay Brig, and Titanium , a project that ended in an SEC investigation. Obviously any new set of institutions must create their own sets of rules and that is exactly what is happening in the blockchain world. But when faced with the potential for massive token fundraising, bigger problems arise. While everyone expects startups to fail, the sheer amount of cash flooding these projects is a big problem. When a startup has too much fuel too quickly the resulting conflagration ends up consuming both the company and the founders and there is little help for the investors. These conflagrations happen everywhere are a global phenomenon. Scam and dead ICOs raised $1 billion in 2017 with 297 questionable startups in the mix. The
Post a Comment
Read more

Dance launches its e-bike subscription service in Berlin

German startup Dance is launching its subscription service in its hometown Berlin. For a flat monthly fee of €79 (around $93 at today’s exchange rate), users will get a custom-designed electric bike as well as access to an on-demand repair and maintenance service. Founded by the former founders of SoundCloud and Jimdo , the company managed to raise some significant funding before launching its service. BlueYard led the startup’s seed round while HV Capital (formerly known as HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) led Dance’s €15 million Series A round, which represented $17.7 million at the time. E-bike subscription service Dance closes $17.7M Series A, led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures The reason why Dance needed so much capital is that the company has designed its own e-bike internally. Called the Dance One, it features an aluminum frame and weighs around 22kg (48.5lb). It has a single speed and it relies on its electric motor to help you go from 0 to 25kmph. And the best part is that you
Post a Comment
Read more