Niantic Sells Pokémon Go To Saudi Arabia To Fund Spatial AI Transition

Everyone's Pokédex in Pokémon Go is now effectively owned by the king of Saudi Arabia.

A $3.5 billion deal formally announced today splits the maker of Pokémon Go into two pieces, one called Niantic Spatial that's pursuing core AI technology based on a "proprietary database of 30 billion posed images" that's owned by exiting investors and led by John Hanke with $250 million in startup funds. That includes a $50 million investment from Scopely, which became the new owner of Pokémon Go and the development teams behind it as well as Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now.

For Pokémon Go, game developer and publisher Scopely issued a blog post welcoming the communities playing the game under their umbrella, with no mention of its parent company, Savvy Games Group. Savvy is wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and they bought Scopely for $4.9 billion in 2023, adding it to a global portfolio that's included the likes of Magic Leap over the years.

Niantic Spatial aims to build on its world map and the tools it offers to others including a robust visual positioning system that can enhance GPS or other localization systems. The tools are described as providing an "unparalleled foundation for geospatial AI, enabling a deeper contextual understanding of the real world."

Historically, hardware manufacturer Magic Leap was dismissed by some after it took Saudi Arabia's investment. When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, the startup failed to secure another major funding round and began laying off staff in multiple rounds. As Palmer Luckey's Anduril is ready to test its own headset technology with the U.S. military as a trade war unfolds, amid the race to develop smarter AI technologies, we'll be curious if Scopely is able to continue harnessing the goodwill of players and making Pokémon Go a leading experience as international relations continue to shift.

"We are incredibly lucky to be able to do deals of this scale with Savvy at our side. Since our acquisition in 2023, when we became an independently-operated company under the Savvy umbrella, we have spent a good amount of time aligning on what we want to accomplish together,"reads a note from Scopely co-CEOs Javier Ferreira and Walter Driver. "Savvy enables us to go after our long-term ambitions by supporting transactions of this magnitude."