According to Foresight News, LINE NEXT, a subsidiary of Japanese social media giant LINE, has completed a $140 million funding round led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a private equity firm backed by Peter Thiel. The funds will be used to expand its global business and develop new services. LINE NEXT plans to officially launch its global NFT platform, DOSI, in January 2024, which will be integrated with the Japanese NFT market LINE NFT and launched as a mobile application for global users.
In addition, LINE NEXT will provide new solutions to help services and brands directly grant ownership and facilitate transactions for existing digital products. The company also plans to launch new services on the Finschia blockchain to accelerate the adoption of Web3. These new services include a social application that allows users to interact based on their created characters and a new Web3 game featuring BROWN & FRIENDS characters that anyone can play. LINE NEXT and Crescendo will participate as governance members in the Finschia Foundation. In July 2022, Foresight News reported that LINE NEXT had completed a $10 million funding round with participation from SoftBank, Naver, CJ ENM, Shinsegae, LINE Games, YG Plus, Hashed, and K Auction.