Sony invests another $200 million into Epic Games to develop their partnership
Sony invests another $200 million in Epic Games as part of a $1 billion funding round, Epic announced today. Over a dozen investors participated in the funding round, which rated the Fortnite developer at $28.7 billion. That’s over $10 billion more than Epic Games’ calculated value at the time of Sony’s major investment last July.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney continues to be the company’s controlling shareholder after the investment. Sweeney said in a press release that the investment will be used by Epic to help quicken their work around building connected social experiences in Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys while empowering game developers and creators with Unreal Engine, Epic Online Services, and the Epic Games Store.
Sony’s $250 million investment in Epic bought them a 1.4 % stake in the company, which VentureBeat noted valued it at $17.86 billion. In a statement, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said that the company is excited to strengthen this collaboration to bring new entertainment experiences to people around the world.
This collaboration points out Sony and Epic’s close relationship. Sony’s PS5 console was used by Epic to show off its next-gen Unreal Engine 5. Sweeney said the two companies worked together on developing the PS5’s storage architecture. “We’ve been working super close with Sony for quite a long time on storage,” he said at the time.
Though Epic has spent hundreds of millions on free games and exclusives for the Epic Games Stores, the company’s valuation has increased. The figure newly appeared as part of its ongoing legal controversy with Apple after the iPhone manufacturer removed Fortnite from its App Store last year.
