• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Epic Games seeking to sell stake for $750 million at $17 billion valuation

Bullet Club

Member
Epic Games seeking to sell stake for $750 million at $17 billion valuation

Fortnite maker Epic Games is raising $750 million, according to two sources who spoke to GamesBeat. Bloomberg reported the news first, but we have independently confirmed the details in our story.

The deal would give Epic a pre-money valuation of $16.3 billion, with a post-money valuation (the value of the company after the deal is done) of $17 billion. Epic Games is the developer and publisher of Fortnite, which has more than 350 million users. And it is also the creator of the Unreal Engine, a fundamental toolset for building many games (and increasingly, making movies and TV). Epic declined to comment.

Bloomberg said that new investors participating in this round are T. Rowe Price Group and Baillie Gifford. Existing investors KKR & Co. will also participate, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

The deal also gives us a window into the company’s current financial picture, as the privately held Epic does not disclose its revenues or profits.

In 2019, Epic Games reported $4.2 billion in revenue and $730 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA, a key measure of profitability). Revenue for 2020 is forecast to be $5 billion, with EBITDA of $1 billion.

In April alone, thanks to the pandemic, Fortnite revenue was $400 million, sources told me. Epic has said that in April, players spent 3.2 billion hours in the battle royale shooter. Fortnite also garnered a huge amount of attention for staging a virtual Travis Scott concert that drew more than 27 million people.

In 2018, Epic Games did better than it did in 2019. Revenue in 2018 was $5.6 billion. Epic used a lot of that money to invest in its Epic Games Store, expanding its staff for Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and some acquisitions.

The company has raised $1.6 billion to date, including $1.25 billion raised in 2018. Tencent bought 40% of the company in 2012 and it remains a shareholder.

Source: Venture Beat
 

VN1X

Banned
Nintendo should way in.
hqdefault.jpg
 

Pejo

Member
I'm reading this as "Epic can't depend on Fortnite for revenue much longer as their audience enters puberty."
Man I wish. I don't like to hold grudges but I want to see Epic get fucked so bad, for bringing paid platform exclusivity into the PC gaming space. It'd even be different if they were offering something unique or better, but they're just paying devs/publishers to keep shit out of other stores. Despicable.
 

TheMan

Member
So is epic the most valuable video game company? And by video game company i mean primarly games, i understand MS is worth more overall
 

Dontero

Banned
In 2019, Epic Games reported $4.2 billion in revenue and $730 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization

That is one huge Hollywood accounting if i have seen one. Epic doesn't hire that many people and their store also is probably run by 10s of people not 100s.

Which means they spent about $3,5BLN just to "survive" which is obviously bullshit.
 
Top Bottom