This week, US augmented reality (AR) software development firm Niantic announced it has secured $300 million in funding, valuing the company at roughly $9 billion, according to reports.
Niantic will use the awarded capital to expand on its powerful ‘Lightship’ AR software development kit (SDK), increase support for its preexisting apps, develop new immersive experiences, and build towards the Metaverse.
The San Francisco-based firm secured investment from a single global technology investment firm, Coatue, who invested in Lightship so that Niantic can work towards creating a ‘real-world Metaverse,’ which overlays digital creations, entertainment, and information onto the real-world.
In a press release, John Hanke, Founder and CEO for Niantic, explained:
“This [building the Metaverse] will take a significant investment of talent, technology and imagination”
The CEO added Lightship-based immersive apps will have the power to make the real world “more magical, fun and informative.”
Matt Mazzeo, General Partner at Coatue, added,
“We are excited to partner with Niantic because we see this infrastructure supporting a metaverse for the real world and helping to power the next evolution of the internet”
Lightship AR SDK
The news comes as Niantic announced it would begin licencing its Lightship ARSDK to third-party AR development teams.
Kei Kawai, Niantic’s Vice President of Product Management explained:
“We want to provide the richest selection of development tools and technologies, so any developer can create their own unique experiences”
This opened the Unity-powered SDK up to developers for the first time, enabling them to create multiplayer AR apps and games with Niantic’s intuitive toolkit.
Niantic’s Lightship ARSDK is the gaming engine behind the massively popular Pokemon: Go, and third-party developers can now create apps for enterprise use cases such as marketing, education, and virtual events.
In August, the US firm hired Dan Morris as Company Director of Developer Relations. Previously, Morris worked at Meta (then Oculus) as Head of Developer Relations, which required his oversight on communications between third-party Lightship developers.
In addition, Niantic acquired Scaniverse in August to enhance performance of Lightship on iPhone devices. Scaniverse is a 3D rendering application designed to build AR experiences with Apple’s Lidar scanner found on most flagship iPhones.
Aside from Pokemon: Go, Niantic has worked with Nintendo to create further social AR gaming experiences, with the partnership debuting Pikmin: Bloom this month for Android and iOS devices.
Additionally, Niantic partnered with Hasbro to develop TRANSFORMERS: Heavy Metal for global release in 2022, which features multiplayer turn-based card battles based off the popular franchise.
