Unity Technologies Inc., the maker of the video game industry’s most popular third-party game engine, has raised an impressive $400 million in funding from private equity firm Silver Lake.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Unity’s latest financing now places the company’s value at more than $2.8 billion. To compare, Chinese conglomerate Tencent paid $330 million for a 40 percent stake in Unreal Engine maker Epic Games, which is Unity’s biggest rival.

First launched in 2004, Unity Engine is a cross-platform game engine that powers some of the world’s most popular games. Unity Engine has become particularly popular with mobile developers and indie studios thanks to its accessibility, active developer community and low cost.

Small-time developers can use Unity at no cost as long as their annual revenue capacity or funds raised capacity remains less than $100k per fiscal year. Unity then charges $35 per seat per month until a developer reaches $200k in revenue, after which they charge $125 per seat per month. Unlike some of its rivals, Unity does not require revenue sharing at any level.

Unity Chief Executive John Riccitiello told Bloomberg that a significant portion of the new funding has been put toward buying out shares from employees and early investors. Riccitiello, who previously served as president and chief operating officer of game publishing giant Electronic Arts Inc., also added while the new funding is good, Unity is not hurting for cash.

“A big chunk of it is secondary and that’s because it makes sense to let employees buy cars,” Riccitiello said. “In terms of primary capital we don’t ultimately need all that primary capital—the capital is safety when we’re investing to grow as fast as we are.”

In addition to its popularity on mobile, Unity has also become one of the most widely used platforms for developing virtual reality experiences, and it supports VR development for both mobile devices, such as Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard, and for PC VR devices, such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Riccitiello noted that industry optimism surrounding VR is one reason Unity has become attractive to investors.

“The second act that I think attracts a lot of investors and investor interest is the fact that we have about 70 percent of AR and VR content built on Unity,” Riccitiello said. “We’ve got a first wave that is going really really well and we have a second one that is dominant.”

Photo: Unity Technologies