Sony has just invested another $200 million in Epic Games as part of a $1 billion funding round, Epic announced today. Over a dozen investors contributed toward the funding round, which valued the Fortnite developer at $28.7 billion. That’s over $10 billion more than Epic Games’ estimated value at the time of Sony’s major investment last July.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is still the company’s controlling shareholder after the investment. In a press release, Sweeney said that Epic will use the investment to “help accelerate our 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.”
The funding round comes less than a year after Sony’s $250 million investment in Epic. That bought it a 1.4 percent stake in the company, which VentureBeat noted valued it at $17.86 billion. In a statement released to coincide with today’s investment, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said that the company is “excited to strengthen our collaboration to bring new entertainment experiences to people around the world.”
This is just the latest sign of Sony and Epic’s close relationship. Epic has used Sony’s PS5 console to show off its next-gen Unreal Engine 5 engine, and Sweeney said the two companies worked closely 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.
Epic’s increase in valuation comes even as the company has spent hundreds of millions on free games and exclusives for the Epic Games Store. The figure recently emerged as part of its ongoing legal feud with Apple after the iPhone manufacturer kicked Fortnite off its App Store last year.
