Unity Technologies, the gaming startup worth more than $3 billion, is reportedly planning to go public in 2020
- Unity Technologies is reportedly planning to go public with an IPO in the first half of 2020.
- Unity is a video game engine used to develop titles for mobile, VR, AR, and traditional consoles. Popular Unity games include "Pokémon Go," "Cuphead," and "Hollow Knight."
- CEO John Riccitiello says Unity Technologies is currently valued at more than $3 billion and earning about $300 million per year in annual revenue.
Unity Technologies, the startup responsible for one of the most popular video game development engines in the world, is planning to go public in early 2020, based on a report from Cheddar.
An anonymous source told Cheddar that the company is planning its IPO for the first half of 2020. A Unity spokesperson declined Business Insider's request for comment on the report.
Earlier this year, CEO John Riccitiello told Cheddar that Unity Technologies is currently worth more than $3 billion and earns about $300 million a year in revenue.
Unity licenses development software to developers, who use it to build all kinds of games for smartphones and traditional consoles. Popular games built using Unity include "Pokémon Go," "Cuphead," and "Hollow Knight."
The company also generates ad revenue from billions of ads placed within Unity-based mobile games. Unity claims that more than 50% of all newly released mobile games are built using their software. In August 2018, Unity announced an agreement to let Google's AdMob customers run ads through Unity's mobile gaming network, sharing that mobile gamers spend almost 9 billion minutes a day playing games built on Unity.
But Riccitiello thinks the Unity software could have applications beyond video games. In a September 2018 interview with Business Insider, Riccitello suggested that versatile 3D development suite could be adopted by architects and engineers. He compared the software's possibilities to Adobe's Photoshop, a software that was initially popular in the fashion industry and has grown to be essential in a wide range of fields.
Unity's biggest competitor is Epic Games, the creator of "Fortnite" and the Unreal Engine video game development suite. The Unreal Engine is used to design "Fortnite" and a host of other major games, like "Kingdom Hearts 3" and "Yoshi's Crafted World."