Lee Hae-Jin, founder of the South Korean search engine Naver, has announced plans to expand the company's presence in the European market. In the announcement, he said that there were plans in place to invest around 100 million US dollars in a fund set up by former French minister, Fleur Pellerin, to assist South Korean firms make their own investments in France. Speaking to reporters, Lee said that he looked at Europe as the next investment opportunity for Naver and Line. Whilst both brands are hugely popular in Asian markets such as Japan and Thailand, the Line messaging app's presence in Western markets is comparatively small. Additionally, Fleur Pellerin said that she believed that the challenge lies in overcoming the problem of a lack of diversity in a digital market where companies such as Google or Facebook are so dominant.Â
