【A Thought of Ecstasy】

Niantic Labs,A Thought of Ecstasy the maker of augmented reality (AR) megahit Pokémon Go, has raised $245 million in a new funding round.

The Series C round, led by IVP with additional investors including Samsung Ventures and aXiomatic, brings Niantic's valuation to nearly $4 billion, the company said in a press release Wednesday.

The company will use the funds to invest in further development of AR tech, machine learning, its Niantic Real World Platform. Niantic will also continue to invest in its gaming titles, which -- besides Pokémon Go -- include the AR game Ingress Prime and the upcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which is being co-developed and co-published with WB Games.

“IVP is excited to support Niantic in building the future of AR -- initially as it delivers the magic of AR through highly popular games, but ultimately by delivering an operating system for applications that unite the digital world with the physical world,” IVP’s Sandy Miller said in a statement.

Niantic started as a Google-incubated project and spun out in 2015, raising $35 million from Google, Nintendo and others. The company raised and additional $200 million in VC funding in 2017.

The upcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite game will once again let users interact with the real world via an AR experience on their phones. The game is scheduled to launch on iOS and Android in 2019.

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