By Stephen L Kanaval via Iris.xyz
Part of Fortnite’s popularity centers around it as a preferred form of social media for younger generations. Now, the publisher of Fortnite, Epic Games, has acquired an upstart app company who are the creators of the popular teen social video app, Houseparty.
Houseparty allows for eight people to chat at one time and really has differentiated itself from other similar apps by enabling users to just jump in a user’s chat as long as they are on the app until the room is locked. For Epic Games, this is a well-known demographic and could work synergistically with what they have built in Fortnite.
Silicon Valley VCs Invested Heavily in Epic Games
“We kept hearing that people were using Houseparty to talk to their real life friends while gaming together and one game came up over and over again: Fortnite,” Houseparty CEO Sima Sistani Tweeted.
Many could see that Epic Games would be looking for interesting acquisitions after the company raised $1.25 billion. Before Houseparty, the company acquired Serbia-based 3Lateral, a game studio focused on designing more realistic computer-generated human characters. The deal was a win-win for both parties as Epic has outsourced realistic character development in its Unreal Engine to 3Lateral. Now, the company and their technology will be operating in-house.
Participating in the recent round were some of the most high-profile VCs in Silicon Valley like KKR, Iconiq Capital, Smash Ventures, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as gaming companies like aXiomatic. The new investors are joining Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders in the company.
Read the full article at Iris.xyz.
