Pokémon Go creator Niantic raises $190 million in a funding round it doesn’t need

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
January 4, 2019
Updated June 18, 2025
2 min

Pokémon Go creator Niantic has closed a $190 million round of funding, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That all but confirms that Niantic is raising money precisely at a time when it doesn’t need it. Niantic declined comment, but the filing comes after a Wall Street Journal report last month that said the company was closing a $200 million funding from investors, including IVP, aXiomatic Gaming and Samsung, at a value of $3.9 billion.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.