Live: Scopely, backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Niantic's gaming division, which includes the popular game Pokémon Go, in a deal worth $3.5 billion.

Scopely, a unit of the Public Investment Fund, said in a statement on Wednesday that it will also own the rights to Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now, as well as the development teams behind these games, confirming earlier reports by Bloomberg News.

Niantic was spun out of Google parent company Alphabet in 2015 and was founded by John Hanke, who previously worked in satellite mapping before heading Google's geospatial products division.

According to Scopely's statement, Niantic's gaming division generated over $1 billion in revenue from 30 million monthly active users over the past year.

This deal comes as part of the Saudi Public Investment Fund's strategy to boost its investments in the video game sector. Two years ago, Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of the fund, acquired Scopely for $4.9 billion. Savvy Games Group was launched with a capital of $38 billion with the goal of transforming Saudi Arabia into a global hub for the video game industry.