In a recent interview, Niantic CEO John Hanke announced that they are now nearly worth $4 billion, thanks to strategic funding from Samsung, Axiomatic Gaming, and IVP. [Thanks, Business Insider!]
The company is well-known for their flagship game Pokemon Go, as well as their upcoming AR title Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. In particular, Pokemon Go has brought in over $2 billion on its own, meaning that Niantic essentially didn’t need the funding. Instead, the funding will be used as an insurance policy to weather any troubles that may occur in the next few years.
Hanke also talked about how Niantic will be investing more into the Real World Platform, which is used to license its AR tech and more to other developers. He wants the company to expand beyond being a game developer to being a developer tools company as well, the same way Epic Games made Unreal Engine but also developed Fortnite. That said, Hanke hinted that this doesn’t mean they’ll slack on current and future games, and that more games are coming up.
