KKR Looks to Sell Stake in Philippine FinTech Maya

Global investment firm KKR is reportedly looking to sell its minority stake in Maya, a Philippine FinTech company that offers an all-in-one money app and operates a digital bank that has 5.4 million customers in the Philippines.

KKR owns more than 20% of the company, and the potential sale could value Maya at over $2 billion, Reuters reported Friday (Jan. 17).

KKR invested in the company in October 2018, when the FinTech was known as Voyager Innovations, according to the report.

Maya was valued at $1.4 billion in its most recent significant funding round, in which it raised $210 million in April 2022, according to the report.

Still known as Voyager Innovations at that time, the company achieved unicorn status as the owner of FinTech PayMaya and neobank Maya Bank, PYMNTS reported in April 2022.

The company said at the time that it would use the funds to launch new services for Maya Bank, such as savings and credit, while expanding PayMaya’s offering with products like cryptocurrency and micro-investments insurance.

In an earlier funding round, Voyager Innovations raised $167 million in venture funding in June 2021 from parent company PLDT, Chinese tech giant Tencent, KKR and IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund.

Before that, the company raised $120 million in April 2020 and $215 million in 2018.

The company rebranded its PayMaya mobile wallet as Maya in April 2022 while also expanding its services to include digital banking and crypto features.

It also launched its digital bank, Maya Bank, six months after it received a digital banking license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

These features joined the company’s legacy eWallet offerings such as money transfers and merchant and bill payments.

Mynt, the owner of another Philippines-based mobile wallet called GCash, was valued at $5 billion in August following investments from Ayala Corp. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).

Yasushi Itagaki, head of MUFG’s global commercial banking business group, said at the time in a press release: “With our investment, we are excited to expand our contribution to the ongoing development of the Philippines’ digital economy and financial inclusion.”

GCash said in May that 94 million people in the Philippines — about 78% of the country’s population — had tried its digital wallet.