Before it was helping the Pokémon Company develop its new augmented reality game, Niantic Labs was working as a division of Google on its own augmented reality game called Ingress, and even though its no longer tied to Google, it’s relationship with company is still friendly. This is apparent from the fact that Google, along with Nintendo and the Pokémon Company, have just invested $30 million into Niantic Labs, which will help it continue its development of Pokémon GO and allow it to expand to other projects.
Ingress creator Niantic may no longer be an official division of Google, but the augmented reality game developer will still have strong ties to its former parent company. Niantic has revealed that Google is among a group of companies that will invest up to $30 million in the developer. Niantic, which officially spun off from Google in August as part of its new Alphabet business structure, will receive $20 million up front from its new financing deal, with another $10 million to be added if certain milestones are met. The other investors include Nintendo and the Pokémon Company Group, which makes sense since Niantic recently announced plans to launch Pokémon GO, another augmented reality game, this time based on the already massively popular game franchise. “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 is scheduled to be launched for iOS and Android sometime in 2016.
