VOYAGER Innovations Inc. is readying for a fresh round of funding toward the end of 2019, as it gears up for its “next phase of expansion,” a ranking official from its majority stakeholder said in a recent interview.
Manuel V. Pangilinan, who chairs PLDT Inc., said in a chance interview that his group “is preparing” Voyager for a new round of funding that will bankroll the digital innovator’s programs next year and beyond.
“It’s fair to state that most likely there’ll be a new round of funding that Voyager will receive toward the end of this year, and that will be up for discussion with the partners,” he said.
Just this year, Voyager, which is the holding company for various digital services that are focused on financial technology, got the nod of global investors Tencent Holdings Ltd., KKR, World Bank’s International Finance Corp. (IFC) and IFC Emerging Asia Fund, raising a total of $215 million in fresh capital, the largest private fund-raising to date in a Filipino tech company.
PLDT remained as the single largest investor in Voyager.
“We want to prepare them for the next round of funding beyond 2019. Management will be comfortable that they will be funded for their next phase of expansion,” he said.
The prospects this year are better for Voyager, which posted a P3-billion net loss in 2018. In the first half of the year, Voyager just posted a net loss of roughly P600 million, which is common for tech start-ups of its scale and magnitude.
Pangilinan said his group had chosen a “good” president for Voyager in the form of finance executive Shailesh Baidwan, who is expected to “shape the company’s strategy and business direction” moving forward.