Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon Go and the upcoming Harry Potter AR gameannounced they’ve taken on $200 million in their Series B investment round.

As reported by Tech Crunch, the Series B investment round was lead by Spark Capital in participation with Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and Chinese Internet technology company NetEase, Inc.

Born out of a startup founded within Google, Niantic is best known for their GPS-based mobile games Ingress and Pokémon Go, the later being an important IP for the company that helped land them their initial $30 million Series A led by Alsop Loui Partners, Google, Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Cyan and Scott Banister and others.

SEE ALSO
What 'Pokémon Go' Could Be Like if it Was Really Augmented Reality

Pokémon Go is branded heavily as an augmented reality game, but due to the lack of room-mapping, it doesn’t offer some of the hallmark features of what you might call a ‘true’ AR game, namely the basic ability to position 3D objects or characters at fixed points in the world and view them from any angle. While this may be true in the short term, genuine smartphone AR support is on the horizon thanks to both Apple’s ARkit and Google’s ARCore, software developer kits that allow developers to create the sort of ‘true’ AR experiences for flagship iOS and Android devices.

It’s still uncertain if the company’s upcoming Harry Potter game will essentially be a reskinned version of Pokémon Go, offering it’s faux-AR passthrough mode or truly delve into AR proper. We’ll be following along as it launches sometime in 2018.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • WyrdestGeek

    Harry Potter probably won’t be a reskined Pogo, but it probably won’t have true AR either. I’m imagining people being expected to flourish their phones at each other yelling out spell words.

    I hope I’m wrong.

    • Shirley

      Google is paying 97$ per hour,with weekly payouts.You can also avail this.
      On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $11752 this last four weeks..with-out any doubt it’s the most-comfortable job I have ever done .. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
      !da250d:
      ➽➽
      ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleCashBlueCareerPartTimeJobs/get/hourly ★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫:::::!da250uuu

    • Elizabeth

      Google is paying 97$ per hour,with weekly payouts.You can also avail this.
      On tuesday I got a brand new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $11752 this last four weeks..with-out any doubt it’s the most-comfortable job I have ever done .. It Sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
      fs303d:
      ➽➽
      ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleOnlineStuffEasyTechJobsOpportunities/easy/jobs ★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫★★✫★✫:::::fs303lhhhhh