Niantic, the company behind the hit location-based mobile game Pokémon GO, have closed a $190.6 million Series C financing round, bringing the company’s overall funding to more than $415 million to date.
As first reported by Tech Crunch, documents filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission revealed the company has secured its Series C on December 20th, 2018, amounting to a total of $190,552,365.
A Wall Street Journal report contended shortly before the deal was sealed that investors would include IVP, aXiomatic Gaming and Samsung. Other investors include Founders Fund, Spark Capital and Alsop Louie Partners; a total of 26 investors took part.
Niantic’s previous financing round netted the studio an impressive $200 million back in November 2017, led by Spark Capital in participation with Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and Chinese Internet technology company NetEase, Inc.
While the company’s next foray into mobile gaming will be Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, another Pokémon GO-style location-based game set in the world of Harry Potter, what really has us excited is the company’s Real World Platform, a set of tools created for third-party developers that’s said to blend machine learning and computer vision.
With Niantic Real World, developers will be able to create their own useful and realistic AR experiences on mobile devices— something more akin to what you’d expect Pokémon GO to be, i.e. 3D virtual characters placed into the physical world, replete with depth mapping and multiplayer accessibility.
Niantic has been mum on the prospect of developing its games for AR headsets, hypothetical or otherwise. With the latest financing round though, the company’s AR pioneering spirit will surely live on as more attainable headset offerings come to the consumer market.
