The developer of Unreal Engine and Fortnite announced a new round of funding. This time Epic Games has raised $2 billion. The investors were Sony Group Corporation and KIRKBI, which owns 75% of the LEGO Group. The money will be used to create a metaverse.
Fortnite
Each of these investors will invest one billion dollars in Epic Games, based on the new valuation of the entire company at $31.5 billion.
In other words, we are talking about their purchase of a 6.35% stake.
The deal has not been closed yet. There are no details about when it will be completed. There is also no information about the existence of any fundamental conditions for concluding a contract.
Since we are talking about buying a relatively small share of the company, Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder of the company, retains control over it.
As for the goals of the deal, the funds received, according to Sweeney, should accelerate “the work on building a metaverse and creating spaces where players could have fun with friends, brands could provide new experiences, and creators could gather communities around themselves.”
It is also reported that:
- all the companies involved in the transaction are aimed at creating a new social entertainment related to interaction with both the digital and the real physical world;
- Sony is confident that the expertise of Epic Games will help it in the development of entertainment software related to sports and virtual reality;
- KIRKBI hopes that the deal will accelerate the company’s involvement in digital projects.
For Epic Games, according to CrunchBase, this is the 12th round. In total, the company has raised $7.1 billion so far.
Investments in Epic Games until August last year (Craft)
For Sony, this is the third investment in Sweeney’s company.
Before that, in the summer of 2020, the Japanese corporation invested $ 250 million in Epic Games and another $200 million in the spring of 2021.