The Mapping Expert Behind Pokémon Go

Over the past couple of weeks, the smartphone game Pokémon Go has more than doubled Nintendo’s share price and reintroduced the Pokémon Co.’s digital monsters to the mainstream. The game’s developer, which released it in partnership with those companies, is a relative unknown.

Niantic, a San Francisco startup with fewer than 100 employees, developed Pokémon Go and the mapping technology that allows the game to layer digital creatures over real-world environs. Mapping has long been a specialty for Chief Executive Officer John Hanke, who helped lay the groundwork for Google Earth with his previous company, which the search giant acquired in 2004. Hanke, a lifelong gamer, made game-world mapping of the real world his focus when he launched Niantic as a startup within Google six years ago. Niantic spun off on its own last year, though Google remains an investor, alongside Nintendo and the Pokémon Co.