Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. image: Nvidia Corporation, under Creative Commons license

According to a report from Bloomberg News, Epic Games, the gaming studio behind video game megahit Fortnite and game production software Unreal Engine, has begun discussions to raise a new round of financing at a valuation that would be “significantly” higher than the $15 billion valuation the company got when it raised funding in 2018. Bloomberg reports Epic Games has hired a financial adviser to handle the fundraising and is seeking between $500 million to $1 billion in new funding.

Epic Games, which was founded nearly three decades ago, is majorly known for its hit ‘battle royale’ game Fortnite. Before creating Fortnite, Epic, however, had produced some fairly popular games including Fire Fight, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade. The company had also launched the Unreal Engine, one of the top-most used video game development engines globally.

Epic’s first major outside investor was Chinese gaming giant Tencent, which purchased about 40% of the game studio’s outstanding shares for $330 million in 2012. That investment preceded the launch of Fortnite, which skyrocketed Epic’s fortune and has drawn billions of dollars in revenue for the company.

In 2018, a group of investors including KKR, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vulcan Capital, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, and aXiomatic invested $1.25 billion in Epic Games at a valuation that amounted to $15 billion. With Epic’s reported new funding, those investors could be looking towards significant returns, and more so Tencent, which got in much earlier.