Improbable, backed by SoftBank, suffered a £19 million loss in the 2022 fiscal year, a decrease of greater than 85% from the £131 million loss the year before.Improbable attributed the reduction in losses to considerable cost savings for running large-scale virtual activities.Since 2012, Improbable has endeavored to construct vast, constantly rendering universes where thousands of players can game and interact.
Improbable, a virtual reality startup, announced Wednesday that its losses were reduced by 85% in 2022, a year during which the company redirected its focus to developing "metaverse" experiences. Revenues for the year more than doubled in comparison to the year prior, amounting to £78 million ($95 million). The company reported its most successful financial year on record, recording a loss of £19 million compared to the £131 million incurred the year prior. The CEO, Herman Narula, credited the success to the investment in metaverses. While the business model has been met with a degree of skepticism, the company has altered its approach to staging mass-scale virtual events, lowering costs from millions to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Additionally, two of its gaming studios, Inflexion Games and Midwinter Entertainment, were divested during the year, as well as a business unit focused on servicing defense clients. Despite the losses recorded, Improbable maintained £140 million in available cash, indicating the ongoing commitment of their investors, which include SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz. Detailed accounts for the company are yet to be released to Companies House.
In 2022, Improbable announced its plans to become a principal entity in the realm of the metaverse—the concept of a digital world, or multiple worlds, where people can socialize, trade goods and services, or simply hang out. The firm has since partnered with several entities in the digital asset space, such as Yuga Labs, to construct the Otherside metaverse, where users can make their own digital avatars, participate in events, and more. Improbable further reinforced its commitment to the metaverse concept earlier this year with the publication of a whitepaper outlining its vision for MSquared, a “network of interoperable Web3 metaverses.” In 2020, MSquared—which is distinct from Improbable—raised $150 million from a range of investors. The service has been designed to be accessed via cloud streaming, similar to a Netflix movie or TV series, thus eliminating the need to download any software to explore MSquared’s multiple worlds. Large names in the sports and entertainment industries, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), have paid attention to this technology. Improbable and MLB have forged an agreement to launch a new virtual ballpark built using Improbable’s metaverse technology. There, visitors will be able to choose any seat they want to watch a game, or zoom in on a particular player from the broadcast angle of their preference.
The tech sector has long been persuaded that virtual and augmented reality will become the new “paradigm” of technology, similar to the internet or the mobile phone. Some are even naming this the technology’s “iPhone moment” in reference to the sweeping impact of Apple’s famous device. Apple recently presented its first VR/AR headset, the Vision Pro, while Meta unveiled the Quest 3 in June. Dissimilar to what Apple, Meta, Microsoft HoloLens, and other firms are doing, Improbable is creating a desktop-based software which won’t require a headset, but promises to be more decentralized and compatible, allowing users to move content seamlessly between metaverses.
Founded in 2012 by Cambridge computer science students Narula and Rob Whitehead, Improbable has been seeking to manufacture expansive, constantly-rendering worlds where thousands of people can play games and collaborate with each other. Headquartered in London, the company is one of the most significant investments of Japanese tech giant SoftBank in the UK.
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