Niantic Labs breaks away from Google, becomes independent

Niantic Labs has announced it is becoming an independent company.

The studio behind geo-location mobile game Ingress was previously owned by Google, but the success of the game has encouraged the team to follow their own path.

Ingress has been downloaded more than 12m times, with more than 250,000 people attending live events around the world.

The firm’s newfound independence was announced via a brief post on Google+, where the firm wrote:

“We’ll be taking our unique blend of exploration and fun to even bigger audiences with some amazing new partners joining Google as collaborators and backers.”

More details will be given at a later date.