Pokemon Go Owner Niantic Sells Gaming Business to Saudi Group for $3.5 Billion

Saudi sovereign wealth fund-backed Scopely has agreed to buy Niantic's gaming business, including the mobile hit Pokemon Go, for $3.5 billion (roughly Rs. 30465 crore)

Scopely, which is owned by a unit of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, will also acquire Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now from Niantic, along with the teams working on them, the Saudi company said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. 

Niantic was spun out of Alphabet's Google in 2015. Founder John Hanke worked in satellite mapping before leading Google's Geo product division. The Niantic games business generated more than $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,702 crore) in revenue from 30 million monthly active users last year, Scopely said.

Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's PIF, bought mobile gamemaker Scopely for $4.9 billion two years ago. Savvy was launched with $38 billion (roughly Rs. 3,30,701 crore) of funding to help transform Saudi Arabia into a video-games hub.

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