Niantic, the creator of the hugely popular Pokemon Go augmented reality game, has raised another $200 million in funding.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company raised this figure in a Series B round led by Spark Capital and includes participation from Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and NetEase, Inc. The company had previously brought in $30 million in its Series A round after being spun out of Google, where it launched as an internal start-up.
It’s not hard to see how Niantic managed to bring in this amount; Pokemon Go become a worldwide sensation when it launched in 2016, getting players to venture out into the real world to capture virtual Pokemon with their smartphones. For many, it demonstrated the potential for AR technology to become the next major platform, and the promise of deeper AR integrated with Apple’s ARKit only suggests the game will continue to evolve.
Earlier this month we learned that the company is working on another AR with yet another massive franchise; Harry Potter. Called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, it’s set to arrive in 2018 and will have players visiting real-world locations to cast spells and discover artifacts. We’d bet on that being pretty successful, too.
