Naver, the South Korea-based internet company that owns instant messaging platform Line, and Japan-headquartered internet and telecom group SoftBank have launched a ₩50bn ($42.6m) strategic investment unit, TechCrunch reported today.
Naver will put up ₩40bn of the capital for SB Next Media Innovation Fund while SoftBank’s SoftBank Ventures unit will put up ₩4.5bn and venture capital firm Korea Venture Investment ₩500m. The other ₩5bn will be supplied by undisclosed external investors.
The fund will look to invest in digital content creators, especially with regard to augmented and virtual reality.
In particular, the fund will target companies with technology that is compatible with Naver subsidiaries Snow, a Snapchat-like visual messaging service, and web comic platform Webtoon. Chang-Wook Kim and Jun-Koo Kim, the respective CEOs of Snow and Webtoon, will be advisors for the fund.
Line, which raised more than $1.1bn when it floated in the US in August this year, operates the $100m Line Game Global Gateway fund and the $42m Line Life Global Gateway fund. Naver and SoftBank expect to close SB Next Media Innovation Fund by the end of 2016.