Real world games maker Niantic, Inc. has raised its Series A financing round from The Pokémon Company Group, Google and Nintendo. The companies are investing up to $30 million in Niantic, Inc., which includes an initial $20 million upfront and an additional $10 million conditioned upon achieving certain milestones. Niantic, Inc. will leverage the funding and strategic relationships to continue work on Pokémon GO, support its thriving global Ingress community, scale its platform and bring new games to market.
“The Pokémon Company, Google and Nintendo are incredible investors and strategic partners to help build the next chapter for Niantic,” said John Hanke, CEO, Niantic. “We will be using this capital to continue the development of Pokémon GO, to evolve and grow Ingress and its thriving global community, and to build out our real-world gaming platform.”
Pokémon GO, Niantic’s most recently announced project, is being developed in collaboration with The Pokémon Company and Nintendo. The new title is a groundbreaking mobile game that will encourage fans to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon. Pokémon GO will be available on the App Store and Google Play in 2016.
“Pokémon’s strategic investment in Niantic paves the way for a social mobile experience the world has never seen before,” said Tsunekazu Ishihara, president and CEO of The Pokémon Company. “The Pokémon Company is committed to partnering with companies like Niantic that share the same spirit of community and innovation.”
“Niantic has shown the great potential of mixing geolocation technology, dynamic storytelling and innovative game design, and we’re excited to continue supporting the team on their journey,” Don Harrison, vice president, Corporate Development, Google, added.
Originally founded by Google Earth co-creator John Hanke as a start-up within Google, Niantic is known for creating Ingress, the real world mobile game which utilizes geo-location technology to fuel a sci-fi story encompassing the entire world. Ingress has seen more than 13 million downloads worldwide.
Source: PR
If they can pull this off well, it could be epic. It could fuel international travel, create real world groups and gym-leaders…the possibilities are endless.
If they do a shitty job, cut features, make it so safe it doesn’t even work right,…waste of 20 million!
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If this has no IAP BS whatsoever, then there might be interests in this.
They get all that money plus they working with the Pokemon company. They must have some real skills. I’m excited.
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