Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, has purchased a smaller San Francisco-based gaming company that was developing a platform for establishing leagues and organizing tournaments, enabling players to build communities centered around well-known games.

Mayhem participated in the Y Combinator program during the winter of 2018 and subsequently secured $5.7 million in investment, as reported by Crunchbase. Additional investors included Accel, who spearheaded the startup’s Series A funding round in 2018, alongside Afore Capital and NextGen Venture Partners.

Since its original presentation at YC, the startup’s core business has undergone a significant evolution. Initially, Mayhem introduced a service named Visor, designed to analyze esports gameplay footage and provide users with personalized coaching to enhance their skills. The company then redirected its efforts towards providing tools for gamers to connect for matches and arrange tournaments for titles such as Overwatch on their platform.

The financial details of the acquisition have not been revealed by Niantic.

The “bulk” of Mayhem’s personnel will be integrating into Niantic, with the startup’s Chief Executive Officer, Ivan Zhou, taking a position within Niantic’s Social Platform Product team. The remaining team members will be incorporated into the Platform Engineering division.

According to a statement released by Niantic, this acquisition “strengthens our dedication to real-world social interaction as a fundamental element of our core purpose.”

Recent acquisitions made by Niantic have largely centered on technologies supporting augmented reality infrastructure. Therefore, the purchase of technology focused on community building represents a noteworthy shift in direction.

While Pokémon GO remains Niantic’s primary revenue generator, the company has not replicated the same degree of widespread popularity with its later releases, as achieving comparable organic growth has proven more challenging. Acquiring a startup specializing in community tools indicates that Niantic is prepared to integrate external technology to advance its own initiatives as it works towards establishing a more extensive platform for its augmented reality projects and developing additional successful games.