Mobile Software Dev AppLovin Makes Bid To Buy Unity For $17 Billion

thegamer.com:

Yesterday, mobile software company AppLovin offered Unity $17.54 billion for an all-stock deal, working out at $58.85 per share.

This news follows Unity's plan of acquiring AppLovin competitor ironSource which it would have to pay $150 million in settlement fees to if the deal doesn't go through (as reported by Reuters). You likely know Unity as the company behind the aptly named Unity Engine which was used to develop Pokemon Go, Fall Guys, Valheim, and VRChat.

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"Unity is one of the world's leading platforms for helping creators turn their inspirations into real-time 3D content," AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi said. "With the scale that comes from unifying our leading solutions and innovation that would be achieved with the combination of our teams, we expect that game developers would be the biggest beneficiaries as they continue to lead the mobile gaming sector to its next chapter of growth."

AppLovin meanwhile is known for giving developers marketing and monetisation tools, particularly focusing on mobile games. It's based in California and was founded only ten years ago by Foroughi, John Krystynak, and Andrew Karam. It also owns and operates Lion Studios which helps to publish mobile games—you may know them from Happy Glass, Love Balls, and Level Up Runner.

Unity has responded to the deal and said that it will evaluate the $17.54 billion offer, an 18 percent premium on Unity's Monday closing price. Its stock since dropped by 2.68 percent after the market closed.

Unity made the headlines recently after CEO Riccitiello stated that game devs who don't focus on monetisation are "fucking idiots", despite being "the most beautiful and pure, brilliant