Silver Lake and Saudi PIF Reportedly Eye Unity Buyout After EA Deal

Unity Software is reportedly in talks with Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's Private Investment Fund (PIF), the same pair that just took Electronic Arts private in a leveraged buyout. A deal would put the engine behind a huge share of the world's games in the hands of owners who are already reshaping one of the industry's biggest publishers.

A consortium with a familiar lineup

Reports describe a consortium of investors, led by Silver Lake and the PIF. Silver Lake is owned by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Trump, and the PIF has been investing in video game and technology companies around the world. Silver Lake already holds eight percent of Unity. Sources say the PIF approached both Unity and Silver Lake to make an offer for a full buyout.

Those sources also say the deal would be structured as a leveraged buyout, like the EA acquisition: the purchase is financed with borrowed money that the acquired company's operating profit then has to repay. It would not match the record size of the EA deal, but it would still rank among the largest leveraged buyouts in history.

Why Unity matters

By Unity's own accounting, its engine powers more than half of all mobile games, along with a large share of console and PC titles. Scopely, which is already owned by the PIF and Silver Lake among others, uses it for games such as Pokémon Go and Monopoly Go.

The company has also been leaning into AI. It recently launched Unity Spark, a prompt-based tool built in collaboration with Google that creates games entirely from user prompts.

A history of developer backlash

Unity's relationship with its customers has been rocky before. In 2024 the company announced a Runtime Fee that would have charged developers a per-install tariff. Developer backlash was severe enough that Unity scrapped the plan. Falling stock prices may have played a part in the resignation of then-CEO John Riccitiello, who was also a former CEO of Electronic Arts.

Current CEO Matthew Bromberg is another former EA executive. He served as General Manager of BioWare, a studio the publisher recently shut down as it works to pay off the leveraged buyout from Silver Lake and the PIF.

That backlash is the main risk of a new ownership structure. Unlike EA, which does not deal directly with individual developers at a similar scale, Unity sells to them every day. Owners who are controversial in the eyes of many developers could provoke an upheaval in Unity's core business, which in turn could threaten the operating profit that a leveraged buyout depends on.

Neither Unity, Silver Lake nor the PIF has publicly confirmed the talks, and no price or timeline has been reported.