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Line Corporation Public Offering is Highest-Valued Tech IPO This Year

Line Corporation, which owns and operates the Line social networking and instant messaging app, went public on Thursday, with share prices starting at US$42 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 33% from its initial public offering (IPO) of US$32.84. The public offering raised more than US$1 billion for the company.

Line Corporation then went public on Japan's Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday, and opened at 4,900 yen (US$46.33), which was 48.5% above the IPO of 3,300 yen (US$31.18). The company is now valued at US$8.6 billion, after being valued at US$7 billion after the New York Stock Exchange closed on Thursday. The public offering has become the highest-valued tech IPO thus far this year.

The app has 218 million monthly active users, with over 68 million users registered in Japan, its biggest market, as of June.

Line Corporation is a subsidiary of South Korea-based Naver Corporation. After trading closed on Thursday, Naver's ownership dropped to 80.8 percent.

The Line app first launched in Japan in 2011, and has since expanded to other Asian countries, as well as the Americas and Europe. A unique feature of Line is its "stickers." The illustrated stickers often portray characters in anime, games, or other media, and is a key revenue source for the app.

Sources: Wired (Davey Alba), Reuters (Sruthi Shankar, Hideyuki Sano, Tom Wilson, Ayai Tomisawa)