Unity, the studio tool used to build a large share of phone and PC games, may be the next big gaming company to change hands. A Reuters exclusive says two backers of the Electronic Arts buyout, Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), have discussed acquiring it. All of this rests on unnamed sources.
Unity did not comment, and the investors had not responded when the report went out. Treat the price and the plan as unconfirmed.
What makes the timing interesting is Unity’s stock. The buyers talked about roughly $25 billion before the company’s third-quarter results, which pushed its market value to about $21.5 billion. In that quarter Unity’s revenue grew 32% to $622.1 million, and it booked its first accounting profit since its September 2020 listing, helped by its AI-driven Vector ad platform. The report, dated 5 November, adds that shares rose about 4% after hours.
Silver Lake is no outsider. It put up to $400 million into Unity in 2017, holds around 8% today, and has Egon Durban on the board; the report says directors in that position usually sit out sale talks. The approach came within the last few weeks, and Unity has since been talking to an investment bank about its choices.
The investor group, which also had Affinity Partners in the EA deal, finished that $55 billion purchase in August. It also owns Scopely, which makes Monopoly Go, and Niantic, the studio behind Pokemon Go, and both already use Unity’s tools. Owning the engine would tie the toolmaker to some of its own customers.
Unity began in Denmark in 2004 and now works out of San Francisco. Its software also appears in car design, film and architecture. For a buyer, a leveraged deal of this size would rank among the biggest in software lately, the report says. For now there is no offer to point to, and the terms could change or the talks could end.
