The company was formed as Niantic Labs in 2010 as an internal startup within Google, founded by the then-head of Google's Geo Division (Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View).

It became an independent entity in October 2015 when Google restructured under Alphabet Inc. During the spinout, Niantic announced that Google, Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company would invest up to $30 million in Series-A funding. Not sure what the current ownership is (they've raised a few more times since then), but they're seemingly still very closely tied with Google.