(March 12): Saudi sovereign wealth fund-backed Scopely Inc has agreed to buy Niantic Inc’s gaming business, including the mobile hit Pokemon Go, for US$3.5 billion (RM15.5 billion).

Scopely, which is owned by a unit of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, will also acquire Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now from Niantic, along with the teams working on them, the Saudi company said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report.

Niantic was spun out of Alphabet Inc’s Google in 2015. Founder John Hanke worked in satellite mapping before leading Google’s Geo product division. The Niantic games business generated more than US$1 billion in revenue from 30 million monthly active users last year, Scopely said.

Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s PIF, bought mobile gamemaker Scopely for US$4.9 billion two years ago. Savvy was launched with US$38 billion of funding to help transform Saudi Arabia into a video-games hub.

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