Line Next attracts $140 mn to globally expand NFT platform

Line Next Corp., a digital asset affiliate of South Korean online portal giant Naver Corp., has attracted $140 million in a funding round led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a Seoul-based investment firm backed by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel.  

It is the largest investment of this year in the Asian blockchain and Web 3.0 industries, said Line Next Chief Executive Officer Ko Young-soo. 

The company is managing the Web 3.0 businesses of Line Corp., the top messenger operator in Japan. Headquartered in Seoul, Line Next operates in Japan and the US.

Line Next will use the fund to expand its global platforms that connect Web 2.0 with Web 3.0 services. The first will be Dosi, a non-fungible token (NFT) platform in a beta service, to be officially launched as a digital asset market in January 2024.

Dosi has rapidly grown with its beta service, posting 55 million global users and 470,000 cumulative transactions over the last year. Line Next will integrate Dosi with its Line NFT, an NFT market operated in Japan, to launch a digital asset trading app for worldwide users.

Line Next is also creating a new Web 3.0 game featuring Line's Brown & Friends characters and a social app where users can create their own characters. The services will be launched based on public blockchain Finschia.

Line Next will popularize Web 3.0 and build a new ecosystem where users can own the value of their digital goods, said Ko.