Unity Technologies, the company behind a development platform used to create apps including Pokemon Go, raised $181 million in funding, which will be used to further its efforts with a focus on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

The platform, which the firm says is also used to make 90 per cent of the content for Samsung’s Gear VR, has 5.5 million registered developers and is used by 31 per cent of the top 1,000 grossing mobile games globally.

Unity Technologies claims to be the largest development platform for creating 2D, 3D, VR and AR games and experiences. It added that it is a “vital cog” in the success of the UK games market, which was worth £4.2 billion last year.

“We continue to focus on helping developers… by focusing on our three core principles; democratising development, solving hard problems and enabling developer success,” said John Riccitiello, CEO.

“Unity’s platform has revolutionised the game industry by allowing any size studio from indie to triple-A to create beautiful and compelling games and experiences and monetise them with their advertising and analytics services,” said Barry Schuler, a partner at DFJ Growth, which led the round.

Schuler will be given a seat at the firm’s board.

“Now Unity is poised to accelerate the advance of AR/VR with their unique ‘write once/ publish many’ engine which allows studios to easily support all hardware platforms without having to attempt to choose a winner,” he added.

Other participants in the round included China Investment Corporation, Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital and WestSummit Capital.