Epic Games, the company behind the highly popular battle royale title Fortnite, just announced that it recently closed another round of funding valued at $1 billion. As a result, the company's equity valuation is now up to $28.7 billion.
What Does Epic Games' Billion-Dollar Funding Round Mean?
The COVID-19 pandemic has done wonders for the already-booming video game industry which was already set to grow even bigger before 2020. However, the recent situation that forced everyone to stay at home has resulted in a dramatic surge in the time and money people spend while playing video games.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of this is Epic Games.
As mentioned earlier, Epic Games developed Fortnite. The 2017 title reported an estimated $5 billion in revenue in 2020 alone. In addition to this, Epic Games also owns the digital games distribution platform, Epic Games Store.
At the moment, the said store is operating at a loss, but this is all part of their grand strategy. Epic wants to widen their reach and eventually lower customer acquisition costs. Its current tactic involves offering a mix of free games to entice users to switch to their platform, as well as securing exclusive titles such as the PC version of Kingdom Hearts and Hitman 3.