MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: SIG Venture Capital Leads $210m Investment in Fintech Voyager of the Philippines

Voyager Innovations, a Philippine provider of digital financial services tools such as Fintq, PayMaya and Smart Padala, recently secured an investment package totaling USD 210 million. The fresh capital is slated for developing the company’s “digital banking venture and other services like cryptocurrency and micro-investments.” Voyager was established in 2013 and previously was wholly owned by wireless service provider Smart Communications, which is held by the publicly-traded Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT).

Although PLDT participated in the new investment package, it was led by SIG Venture Capital, the Asia-oriented venture capital arm of US-based Susquehanna International Group (SIG). The other participants included two first-time investors in Voyager: EDBI, a unit of the Singapore government’s Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB); and First Pacific Company of Hong Kong, along with three continuing Voyager shareholders: the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC); US-based investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR); and China’s Tencent Holdings. Although the sizes of the other investments have not been released, IFC has announced that it placed USD 18.5 million in Voyager during this funding round. The investment package values the firm at USD 1.4 billion. As of 2022, Voyager serves approximately 47 million customers.

By Hasnat Aslam, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Reuters article
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippine-fintech-voyager-raises-210-mln-gains-unicorn-status-2022-04-12/

IFC press release
https://pressroom.ifc.org/all/pages/PressDetail.aspx?ID=26935

Voyager description
https://www.voyagerinnovation.com/about-us

PayMaya homepage
https://www.paymaya.com/

SIG Venture Capital homepage
https://sig-asiavc.com/

First Pacific Company homepage
https://www.firstpacific.com/

EDBI homepage
https://edbi.com/

EDB description of EDBI
https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/about-edb/who-we-are.html

Smart Communications homepage
https://smart.com.ph/

PLDT homepage
https://www.pldt.com/