Line Corporation, the owners of the popular Line messaging app, has announced the Line Life Global Gateway, an investment fund aimed at businesses in particular industries. Line’s specifically targeting e-commerce, online payments, online-to-offline business, and the wider media and entertainment world.
It’s part of Line’s plan to expand beyond its roots of instant messaging, something it has been working on for sometime. The company says it wants to become a, “platform for everyday life for all users both online and offline under the theme of ‘Life.”” The Life Global Gateway, it says, has been created to speed these efforts up.
The Line messaging app, and some of its features
Line is committed to moving beyond messaging. Late last year, it purchased MixRadio from Microsoft and is planning to build an online streaming music service, which it intends to launch internationally. It also introduced Line Pay, an online payment system which can be used to purchase virtual goods inside the app, and in selected retail stores in Asia. Plus, it acquired e-commerce firm WebPay earlier this month. In Japan, where it’s the number one messaging app, it also operates a taxi hailing and food delivery service.
Line is also popular in other parts of Asia, and currently boasts 181 million active monthly users. It’s still way behind WeChat, which has 468 million active users, and the Facebook-owned WhatsApp, with 700 million global users. The Life Global Gateway fund contains five billion yen, which is around $42m, and Line is soliciting for interested companies to submit proposals now.
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