Epic Games has acquired London tech firm SuperAwesome and plans to build a wide range of services to make the internet safer for children.
SuperAwesome creates tools which allow developers to create safer digital experiences for younger audiences.
Its Kids Web Services (KWS) platform is a parental consent management toolkit, while AwesomeAds allows devs to offer kid-safe monetisation inside their products.
SuperAwesome says it powers safe digital engagement for more than 500 million kids every month across thousands of apps, games and services.
It is trusted by more than 300 top brands, including LEGO, NBC Universal and Hasbro.
“More kids interact online than ever before and now is the time to double down on their safety,” said Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.
“SuperAwesome is the company developers want to work with to make better online content for kids.
“We share the belief that digital experiences are better when you go the extra mile to respect privacy and we’re thrilled to invest in this future alongside the talented SuperAwesome team.”
Dylan Collins, co-founder and CEO of SuperAwesome, said: “The internet was never designed for kids so we started SuperAwesome to make it as easy as possible to enable safe, privacy-driven digital experiences for children everywhere.
“Partnering with Epic Games gives us the opportunity to deliver that promise on a scale which simply wouldn’t have been possible on our own.
“We’re proud and excited to be working together to make the internet safer for kids.”
Epic operates Fortnite, one of the world’s largest games with over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections, and also develops Unreal Engine, which powers the world’s leading games and is also adopted across industries such as film and television, architecture, automotive, manufacturing, and simulation.