Improbable (company)
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 in Barnet, London |
| Headquarters | 10 Bishops Square, London, E1 6EG, UK [1] |
| Founder(s) | Herman Narula Peter Lipka Rob Whitehead [2] |
| Key people |
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| Industry | Cloud computing Information technology Video games Military technology |
| Products |
|
| Services |
|
| Revenue |
 £1.2m (2018) |
| Total equity |
|
| Employees | 1000 |
| Subsidiaries |
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| URL | improbable.io |
Improbable Worlds Limited (commonly referred to as Improbable) is a British multinational technology company founded in 2012, and headquartered in London, England. It makes distributed simulation software for video games and corporate use.[1]
History[]
2012-2015[]
Co-founders Herman Narula and Rob Whitehead both studied computer science degrees at Cambridge University, at Girton and Robinson Colleges respectively. They met at Cambridge Computer Labs in the months leading up to Narula's graduation; Narula was specialising in computer vision and Whitehead in graphics. The third co-founder Peter Lipka was a student at Imperial College, London before taking a job as a developer for Goldman Sachs. Narula and Whitehead shared a childhood love of video games, with Whitehead boosting his student income by making and selling weapons in Second Life. The three founders would go on to become Improbable's CEO, Chief Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer/Asian CEO respectively.
The firm's initial vision was of a product to help smaller video game development teams create massive simulations (or “virtual worlds”) at far greater scale and complexity. This culminated in SpatialOS, a distributed operating system for massive-scale simulations which integrated with major game engines.
Initially the business was run from Narula's parents' Hertfordshire house, Hyver Hall, through to the end of 2013, with Whitehead moving into the Narula family home. Seed funding came from a $1m Narula family loan and $1.2m from angel investors. Early-stage funders included the Wired journalist David Rowan (the first outside investor), UK VCs Saul and Robin Klein, Acorn Computer co-founder Hermann Hauser, Jawbone co-founder Alex Asseily, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, Transferwise founder Taavet Hinrikus, Amadeus Capital Partners, Conversion Capital and UK tech investor Marcus Exall.
In March 2015 the firm received a $20m Series A investment from Andreessen Horowitz, with Chris Dixon taking a board seat. Other series A investors included Horizons Ventures and Temasek.
The firm partnered with Google in December 2016. SpatialOS was released into open beta in February 2017. The first games built on the technology were Worlds Adrift by Bossa Studios, Lazarus by Spilt Milk Studio and Fall Guys by Mediatonic.
2016-2019[]
In 2016 Improbable won a multi-year contract with the US Army to provide war-gaming simulations.
In May 2017 Improbable received $502m in a round of Series B funding, led by SoftBank. At the time it was the largest ever VC investment in a European technology firm. Softbank's investment was non-controlling, although its managing partner Deep Nishar joined Improbable's board. Andreessen Horowitz and Horizons Ventures made follow-on investments in the same round. Improbable recorded revenue of £7.9m for the 12 months to May 2017, most of which arose from its 2016 US Army deal. In the same year the firm also received £876,960 funding from Innovate UK.
In 2018, Improbable raised $100m from Chinese internet group NetEase, valuing the firm in excess of $2bn. It also founded an office in Edmonton, Canada, with BioWare's Aaryn Flynn joining as manager for North America.
In 2019 Improbable signed an £11.5m contract with UK Strategic Command and a £2.3m contract with the British Army. In the same year, the firm underwent a terms of service dispute with Unity Technologies, the latter blocking several SpatialOS games. Improbable partnered with Epic Games (makers of the competing Unreal Engine) to create a US$25 million assistance fund to help developers affected by the dispute, which has since been resolved.
Between 2018 and 2020 Improbable made three acquisitions, buying German cloud computing firm Zeuz, American developer Midwinter Entertainment and the UK games company The Multiplayer Guys.
2020-present[]
In 2020, Army Technology magazine reported that Improbable had entered a global partnership with Microsoft in the defence and national security sector, with Improbable's synthetic environment platform being deployed with Microsoft's Azure application management service to assist governments with operational planning, policy design, collective training, national resilience and defence experimentation.
In an October 2021 conference call Narula presented the shape of Improbable's operational businesses and said the firm required no additional investment to become profitable.
Products and services[]
Metaverse infrastructure and experiences[]
In October 2021 Improbable revealed Project Morpheus, a series of ongoing software projects allowing mass scale during gameplay and lower operating costs for massively multiplayer online games and simulations, including esports stadia and virtual concerts in addition to gaming.[3]
Gaming[]
Improbable has a portfolio of technology and services to develop and operate various third-party and in-house multiplayer games. This includes an experimental version of Midwinter's Scavengers using Morpheus, which can accommodate 10,000 players simultaneously with low latency voice communication.[4]
Defence[]
Improbable develops large-scale real-life simulation platforms for governments and defence, including for the US Department of Defense and the UK Ministry of Defence.[3]
List of games[]
- Ion (TBA, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One) - Cancelled in 2016[5]
- Worlds Adrift (2017 for Microsoft Windows) - Cancelled in 2019[6]
- Mavericks: Proving Grounds (2018 for Microsoft Windows) - Cancelled in 2019[6]
- Seed (TBA, for Microsoft Windows)[6]
- Lazarus (2018, for Microsoft Windows) - Cancelled in 2019[6]
- Scavengers (TBA, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.) [7]
- Untitled Online RPG (TBA.) [8]
References[]
- ^ a b "Improbable Website".
- ^ "The Leap 100" (PDF). City A.M. Retrieved 5 May 2017.
- ^ a b "Can Improbable get its metaverse ambitions back on track with this stealth project? | Sifted". sifted.eu. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
- ^ "Improbable leaning into the metaverse". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
- ^ "Ion, the space survival game by Dean Hall and Improbable, is dead". Eurogamer. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
- ^ a b c d "Games made with SpatialOS". Improbable.io. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
- ^ "Scavengers". Improbable.io. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
- ^ "Former BioWare Developers Are Building An Online RPG For Improbable". GameInformer. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
- British companies established in 2012
- Companies based in London
- Video game companies