Unity Software Inc S-1

Interesting given the current issues with their primary competitor Unreal Engine/Epic, although the timing of this IPO is 100% coincidental.

"We have experienced rapid growth. Our revenue grew from $380.8 million to $541.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 42%, and from $252.8 million to $351.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2020, respectively, representing period-over-period growth of 39%. We generated net losses for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, and six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2020, of $131.6 million, $163.2 million, $67.1 million and $54.1 million, respectively, which included $20.9 million, $44.5 million, $14.8 million and $21.7 million, respectively, of stock-based compensation expense. We reduced our net cash used in operating activities from $81.1 million to $67.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, respectively, and from $19.8 million to $15.4 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2020, respectively."

Promising financials!

This should be a monster. We have no direct game development tools exposure on the stock market, unless you count Autodesk, but their tools are usable by other industries. That means it's gonna be shouldering a burden for an entire industry, and one that the stock market doesn't understand or appreciate. Potential for going either way, really.

Development tools have traditionally been a poor investment long term, but that's not been the case since about 2010, especially since Atlassian went public.

Unity is also gonna be a proxy for Unreal. Since these two competitors are not directly competing on the stock market, Unity should be a bit of a mirror for what the market thinks Unreal would be worth on its own.

Yes, it means that they are going through the paperwork required to do an IPO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_S-1

Having followed this space for some time, Unity made huge strides at the beginning but has become notorious for punishing shiny features while leaving things broken or half-supported, which makes the developer’s life hard if you happen to run into one of those bugs. Closed source means you’re stuck writing ugly workarounds.

My impression was that you can bootstrap some incredible stuff in Unity, but demanding kinds of games will push you into its uglier corners and leave you at the mercy of its updating schedule.

This is very different from Unreal, or even Godot, which have their own trade offs. But it seems to me like there is enough of a “mid market” for all of them to coexist.