Philippines telecom company PLDT says Tencent and KKR will invest up to $175M in Voyager, PLDT's new fintech business, gaining a minority stake
Context & Ripple Effects
PLDT is opening up Voyager, the fintech business it built around the PayMaya wallet, to outside money for the first time at scale: Tencent brings a consumer-payments playbook from China, KKR brings institutional balance-sheet discipline, and both take only a minority stake so the telecom keeps control. The deal closed fast — within weeks Voyager announced it had raised $215M with the Tencent-KKR tranche at its core, confirming the strategic round rather than a trial balloon.
The bet aged well against a crowded field: Go-Jek had just bought local wallet rival Coins.ph via its $72M acquisition ahead of a Philippines expansion, Sequoia-backed digital bank Tonik was raising to launch, and by 2022 Voyager itself had reached a $1.4B valuation on a $210M SIG-led round — making this 2018 entry the cheap early position in what became the country's marquee fintech.
First-order effects
- PLDT gets up to $175M of growth capital for Voyager without ceding control, shifting the funding burden for PayMaya's expansion off the telecom's own balance sheet.
- Tencent and KKR each secure a minority foothold in Philippine mobile payments before foreign entrants like Go-Jek lock up rival wallets.
Second-order effects
- Go-Jek's Coins.ph and Sequoia-backed Tonik now face a locally entrenched PayMaya with Tencent's product depth and KKR's capital behind it, forcing faster burn on customer acquisition across Philippine digital finance.
- The round sets a pricing benchmark for Southeast Asian fintech stakes, giving later investors like SIG a template for valuing Voyager's follow-on raises.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Southeast Asian telecoms systematically spin their payment units into investor-backed standalone fintechs — telcos become shareholders rather than operators, and global funds become the growth engine for national wallet champions.
- Foreign capital taking meaningful minority positions in Philippine financial infrastructure also points regulators toward tighter scrutiny of who ultimately owns the country's payment rails.
The trend: Telecoms across Southeast Asia are converting in-house payment apps into venture-backed fintech platforms funded by global investors, with Tencent-style strategic money arriving earliest and cheapest.