Japan-based online messaging service Line has formed a venture capital fund with US-based venture capital firm Collaborative Fund, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The fund, which will invest from a base of less than $10m in capital, will seek to support seed-stage startups, according to Craig Shapiro, Collaborative Fund’s founder and CEO.
Shapiro told the NYT he was introduced to Line through Kim Jung-Ju, the founder of games company Nexon, which is one of Collaborative Fund’s limited partners.
In addition to forging a path for Collaborative Fund in Asia, the partnership is also set to give Line, which is planning to go public later this year, a bigger presence in the United States.
Collaborative Fund has funded companies including crowdfunding website Kickstarter, online news and entertainment site Reddit, ride sharing company Lyft and Maker Studios, the online video network bought by Disney for $500m earlier this year.