The messaging behemoth LINE, with its NFT arm LINE NEXT based in South Korea, has raised $140 million in funding with the goal of “popularizing the Web3 ecosystem.”
The investment was described by LINE as “the largest funding round in the Asian blockchain Web3 industry for this year” in a statement that was made public today. It was run by the private equity firm Crescendo Equity Partners, which has backing from Peter Thiel.
With the additional funding, LINE intends to formally introduce DOSI, a global NFT platform, in January 2024. According to the company, “DOSI will be made available as a mobile app to users worldwide, integrating with Japan’s NFT marketplace LINE NFT.”
Assigning ownership to brands
Additionally, LINE NEXT intends to assist companies in granting “ownership” and trading rights to already-existing digital goods. The social media behemoth plans to launch web3 games with its current BROWN & FRIENDS characters.
Kevin Lee, the managing partner of Crescendo, stated in the statement, “We hope to build a standard for Web3 apps that general users can easily use and adopt blockchain to all sorts of services and brands of Web2.”
The group intends to “further popularize Web3 and develop a new service ecosystem where users own the value of their digital goods,” according to LINE NEXT CEO Youngsu Ko.
The massive social media platform has been actively exploring the web3 market. It launched the beta service for its global NFT platform DOSI in September 2022 after establishing LINE NEXT in December 2021.
