Taipei, Dec. 6 (CNA) LINE Taiwan, the local operations of mobile messaging and communication services supplier LINE Corp., has completed its investment in TaxiGo, a Taiwanese version of Uber, to further build a transportation ecosystem.
In a statement, LINE Taiwan said the company has become the largest shareholder of TaxiGo, but the financial terms of the investment and the company's stake in the Taiwanese ride hailing service provider were not immediately known.
According to the Department of Commerce under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, TaxiGo, which was founded in March 2017, has total capital of NT$15.50 million (US$508,196).
Through the Line investment in TaxiGo, TaxiGo's management and LINE Taiwan will work together to operate the LINE Taxi platform, the statement said.
LINE unveiled the LINE Taxi car hailing platform in October and has already accumulated 700,000 users.
LINE Taiwan managing director Roger Chen (陳立人) said in the statement that he was delighted to see the investment plan go through smoothly because both LINE and TaxiGo have embraced a similar vision of the ride hailing business.
The investment in TaxiGo represents another step taken by LINE to develop a transportation ecosystem to provide better solutions for the ride hailing business in Taiwan, Chen said.
LINE said TaxiGo became the first company developed under LINE's start-up cultivation program since 2017 to grow and work with LINE.
TaxiGo co-founder and CEO Chen Tai-cheng (陳泰成) was cited by local media as saying that he was grateful for LINE's support in the initial stage of his company's operations, and he hoped the presence of LINE will improve local ride hailing services.
LINE began the start-up program -- LINE Protostar -- in Taiwan at the end of 2015, allocating resources to help start-ups grow.
To date, the program has provided assistance to more than 30 start-ups in several different sectors, including entertainment, education and financial services.
(By Jeffrey Wu and Frances Huang)
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