Japan-based mobile messaging platform developer Line committed $10m on Wednesday to a corporate venturing fund called Unblock Ventures that will concentrate on token investments.
Unblock Ventures is situated in Hong Kong and will make investments in the token offerings that have proven a key fundraising method for blockchain and crypto technology developers, and increasingly for more mainstream companies.
The fund will be overseen by Unblock, Line’s blockchain technology subsidiary, but Line committed the capital through another cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused unit, LVC Corporation, and expects to increase the fund’s size as the sector grows.
Recipients of funding from Unblock Ventures will be early-stage companies, and Line said the vehicle was launched “to boost the development and adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.”
The fund’s launch was disclosed alongside news that Line has made decentralised blockchain platform Tron the first company to have its coin admitted to Bitbox, the corporate’s cryptocurrency exchange, which admits coin-based projects that have passed Line’s evaluation process.