Unity is looking to raise up to $125 million from a Series E funding round, TechCrunch reports.

The figure was disclosed in a Delaware stock authorisation filing, the details of which have since been confirmed by Unity.

Such a fundraise would give the company a $5.96 billion valuation.

Flush with cash

Unity has raised more than $600 million to date. Its last investment round in 2018 netted it $400 million from private equity firm Silver Lake, which at the time valued the firm at $2.6 billion.

The tech company said the funds would be used both as a safety net as it expands, as well as allow early investors and employees to cash out if they wanted.

Prior to that, it raised $181 million in 2016 from DFJ Growth, China Investment Corporation, FreeS Fund, Thrive Capital and Max Levchin.

Unity is reportedly eyeing up an initial public offering, which could take place in the first half of 2020.

Epic competition

Unity has a dominant position in the games development space, particularly on mobile. It does however face competition from rival Epic Games, which develops the Unreal Engine.

While Epic’s tech is successful in its own right, the company has recently been flush with cash thanks to the blockbuster sales of Fortnite. This has led it to generate not only billions of dollars in revenue from one game, but to also raise $1.25 billion in funding.

It has used this money to continue regular updates on Fortnite, open up a $100 million MegaGrants funding initiative, go live with a new PC storefront - with an Android marketplace said to be coming this year, and launch free Online Services for all developers.

It’s also helped drive acquisitions, such as the purchase of Rocket League developer Psyonix, cloud computing firm Cloudgine (prior to the fundraise), facial capture specialist 3Lateral and SkookumScript developer Agog Labs.

Unity and Epic will be attending Pocket Gamer Connects Seattle on May 13th and 14th.