Azuki NFT Creator Chiru Labs Reveals Collaboration With Linemates

Chiru Labs Web3 startup behind the valuable Azuki NFT Project on Ethereumis joining the popular Line Friends media and merchandise property through a partnership with parent company IPX, the firms announced Wednesday.

Line Friends is a collection of cartoon animal characters inspired by stickers from the top Japanese messaging app Line and from the South Korean internet giant Naver. Since its debut in 2011, Line Friends has spawned a series of themed stores, along with theme parks, a “Brown and Friends” Netflix series, a collaboration with K-Pop band BTS, and more.

Through the partnership, Chiru Labs and IPX plan to collaborate through their respective properties, with potential content, merchandise and events in the works. The first collaboration will feature Line Friends characters along with Beanz, a NFT collection spun off from Azuki.

A look at Jay, Chiru Labs’ Beanz-based character. Photo: Chiru Labs

Artwork shared by Chiru Labs with Decrypt features a Beanz character named Jay, who was previously introduced along with another character named Jelly via a short Twitter animation in February.

To mark the announcement, the companies will run an animated short on the video poster above the Line Friends store in New York City’s Times Square starting today, in the middle of the annual NFT NYC conference. IPX has previously collaborated with brands such as Samsung, Starbucks, Meta and Vans.

Launched in early 2022, Azuki is one of the most successful NFTs profile picture (PFP) projects to date in terms of trade volume, yielding trades worth around $930 million per data from CryptoSlam. The original anime-themed project then spawned Beanz— cartoonish, bean-inspired NFT characters — that have generated $263 million worth of trading volume.

Liz Yang, Chiru’s head of growth, said Decrypt that Line Friends parent company IPX has “made a concerted push into Web3 in recent years,” and that their specialty is cultivating character-centric IP. Through this agreement, the Line Friends characters will be paired with Chiru’s Web3 properties for future content and products.

“This is their bread and butter: creating and developing that IP,” Yang said, “and translating it into something that people of all ages can interact with or consume.”

The companies have yet to reveal the first products or creations that will come out of the alliance, beyond the Times Square teaser, but a Chiru Labs tweet posted this morning hints at potential toys.

Interestingly, Chiru has developed a physically backed token (PBT) standard on Ethereum that pairs a blockchain token with a physical product to verify its authenticity. The company debuted the technology last October with an auction for eight gold-plated skateboards, which together brought in $2.5 million worth of ETH.

Line Friends is not Chiru’s first prominent Asian partner: in January, the Los Angeles-based company revealed a deal with Bilibili, a hugely popular video platform considered China’s equivalent of YouTube, with some 333 million users from the 3rd quarter of 2022. This partnership allowed Azuki and Beanz NFT holders get access to exclusive stickers and other benefits on the platform.

The adaptation to established Asian brands makes thematic sense, given Azuki’s anime influence. However, Yang said the goal of these deals is not just to serve the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and potential collectors there, but rather to “bring that culture into really unexpected areas” with a global reach in mind.

“Although IPX is a South Korean company, I feel that we have a startup-like, innovative, American style,” Yang said. “We’re really looking to push boundaries with this type of partnership.”