BRV Capital invests $110m in Line's Thailand delivery app
Line Man, a parcel-to-food delivery app launched in Thailand by Japan’s Line Corporation, has raised $110 million from BRV Capital, an affiliate of BlueRun Ventures.
Line is a subsidiary of South Korea’s Naver Corporation. It offers messaging, payments and content services in Japan.
Launched in Thailand in 2016, Line Man provides delivery services for food, groceries, convenience store items, parcels alongside messaging and taxi-hailing capabilities. It claims to serve three million users a month. The Line Man app has established partnerships with over 100,000 restaurants in the country.
Line has announced that the app will merge with local restaurant listings and reviews platform Wongnai, which has 10 million users. The merger facilitates an exit for Recruit Strategic Partners and InTouch Ventures. Wongnai has a restaurant database of over 400,000 eateries. There is some new capital in the deal, which will go towards expansion initiatives.
“Since its launch four years ago, Line Man has grown into the most popular delivery application for the Thai people — and now, this investment by BRV Capital Management will help take Line Man to the next level,” said Eunjung Lee, head of global business for Southeast Asia at Line Corporation.
BRV is an active investor in China but also has offices in Seoul and Tokyo.
Other firms that operate in the food delivery space in Thailand include Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda and GrabFood. Two years back, Indonesian offline-to-online services player Gojek launched Get but the app rebranded to become a local version of the main app this year.
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