Games
“Pokémon Go”: Niantic valued at nine billion dollars
There is one: “Pokémon Go” draws its charm from augmented reality, in which the real environment is included with the help of the smartphone camera. Photo: Sophia Kembowski / dpa / dpa-tmn
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The “Pokémon Go” smartphone game was a global success. The developer company Niantic has now been able to raise money in another round of financing – and wants to invest in more games.
The developer company behind the popular smartphone game “Pokémon Go” has achieved an overall valuation of nine billion dollars.
San Francisco-based Niantic raised $ 300 million in its most recent financing round from the investment company Coatue. The money is to be used for previous and new games as well as the expansion of the technical platform behind them, as Niantic announced on Tuesday night.
In its games, Niantic tries to integrate digital figures and objects on the screen into real environments. Company boss John Hanke sees the concept as an alternative to the “Metaverse” ideas of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for example, which, in his view, take place too much in purely virtual environments. Following the success of “Pokémon Go”, where players collect digital monsters, Niantic brought a game with characters from the “Harry Potter” universe onto the market, but this is due to be discontinued after around two and a half years.