$25 billion, Saudi capital is in talks to acquire Unity — will it further expand its gaming business layout?
According to Reuters reports on November 6, U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) have recently contacted game engine developer Unity regarding a potential acquisition, with the discussed transaction valuation at around 25 billion U.S. dollars.
People familiar with the matter revealed that Silver Lake and PIF approached Unity in recent weeks to discuss the acquisition. Unity has currently hired investment banks to evaluate the company's options, but relevant negotiations are still in the early stage, the deal is uncertain to be reached, and the specific plans and terms may also change.
It is worth noting that the $25 billion valuation was discussed before Unity released its latest quarterly financial report. On November 5, Unity released its financial report for the third quarter of 2026, with revenue reaching 622 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 32%; GAAP net profit reached 122 million U.S. dollars, marking its first quarterly profit since listing in 2020.
After the financial report was released, Unity's market value rose to about 21.5 billion U.S. dollars, and its share price rose by nearly 15% during the regular trading session on November 5. After the news of the acquisition came out, its share price rose further in after-hours trading.
Silver Lake and Unity have long had deep capital ties. In 2017, Silver Lake invested up to 400 million U.S. dollars in Unity and currently holds about 8% of Unity's shares. Egon Durban, managing partner of Silver Lake, is also a member of Unity's board of directors. In accordance with relevant governance practices, he usually needs to recuse himself from board discussions involving the sale of the company to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
If the transaction is finally completed, Unity will be delisted from the public market and become one of the larger leveraged buyouts in the game software industry in recent years.
Saudi Capital Continues to Expand Its Footprint in the Gaming Industry
This potential acquisition is also a signal that Saudi capital is further expanding the scope of its investment in the gaming industry.
In the past few years, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has continuously acquired global gaming enterprises through investment platforms such as its subsidiary Savvy Games Group.
In 2023, Savvy completed the acquisition of Scopely, the developer of *Monopoly Go!*, for 4.9 billion U.S. dollars. In 2025, Scopely acquired Niantic's gaming business for 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, bringing products such as *Pokémon GO*, *Pikmin Bloom* and *Monster Hunter Now* under its banner.
On March 20, 2026, ByteDance announced that it has agreed to sell Moonton Technology, the developer of *Mobile Legends: Bang Bang*, to Savvy Games Group. According to people familiar with the matter, the transaction valuation of Moonton exceeds 6 billion U.S. dollars, and the valuation range of relevant previous negotiations was 6 billion to 7 billion U.S. dollars.
In addition, in September 2025, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners announced the acquisition of U.S. gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) for about 55 billion U.S. dollars, and officially completed the transaction in August 2026.
Layout of Savvy Games Group
Judging from the above investments, Saudi capital's layout has covered multiple fields such as game R&D, distribution and esports. The game engine and development tool field where Unity is located is a more basic technical link in the game industry chain.
At present, Unity's engines and development tools have been adopted by a large number of game developers around the world, and its technology is also applied to real-time 3D fields such as automotive design, film and television production, architecture and industrial simulation. It is worth noting that game enterprises invested by Saudi capital such as Scopely and Niantic also use Unity's technology.
Saudi Arabia launched the National Gaming and Esports Strategy in 2022, planning to create more than 39,000 jobs for related industries by 2030 and contribute about 50 billion Saudi riyals to GDP.
From Scopely and EA to Unity, which may be acquired now, Saudi capital is gradually extending to different links of the global game industry. If this transaction is finally implemented, its game industry investment map will further expand to the underlying R&D technology and infrastructure.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account "DataEye" (ID: DataEye), the author is DataEye Research Institute, and 36Kr is authorized to release it.