After Buying EA, Silver Lake and PIF Are Reportedly Now Seeking to Acquire Gaming Software Provider Unity

A consortium of investors including private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF has held recent talks to acquire gaming software provider Unity.

A Reuters report citing confidential sources familiar with the matter states that PIF and Silver Lake, the latter of which already owns 8% of Unity, approached the company in recent weeks. The buyer consortium discussed a valuation of about $25 billion before Unity’s latest earnings report, which lifted its market capitalization to roughly $21.5 billion.

Unity has reportedly been consulting with an investment bank to evaluate its options following the approach, however talks are preliminary and no deal is assured.

Should the acquisition go ahead, this would be another major investment into the games industry for Silver Lake and PIF. The two firms previously teamed up with Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners to acquire Electronic Arts for $55 billion in a deal that was finalised in August. Since then the publisher has initiated major corporate restructurings and studio closures, most recently shutting development studio BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect game.

Unity’s popular game engine and development tools have been used to create thousands of mobile, console, and PC games. These include Genshin Impact, Hollow Knight, Among Us, Subnautica, and Beat Saber, to name just a few. Notably, Unity’s tools are also used by Scopely, the developer of Monopoly Go!, and Niantic, the maker of Pokemon Go, both of which are owned by a group that includes Silver Lake, PIF, and Affinity Partners.

Silver Lake has already invested $400 million into Unity and with its 8% stake it remains one of its largest shareholders. Since going public in 2020, Unity has expanded beyond its game engine business into advertising technology and broader real-time 3D software, and its tools are increasingly used in automotive design, filmmaking, architecture, and industrial simulation.

After news of the acquisition talks first broke, Unity shares rose nearly 15% in regular trading and sit at $48.80 per share at the time of writing.