Andreessen Horowitz, SoftBank Lead $150M Raise for Metaverse Startup Improbable

The multiplayer services provider is accelerating its push into the metaverse.

By Eliza Gkritsi

Apr 7, 2022 at 1:54 p.m. UTC

Updated Apr 7, 2022 at 2:44 p.m. UTC

A scene from inside Decentral Games' metaverse casino. (Eli Tan/CoinDesk)

Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi is CoinDesk's crypto mining reporter based in Asia.

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Metaverse technology firm Improbable has raised $150 million led by Andreessen Horowitz and SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 to build a "network of interoperable Web 3 metaverses," dubbed M², according to a Thursday press release.

Digital Currency Group – CoinDesk's parent company – Mirana Ventures, SIG, Ethereal Ventures and CMT Digital, the crypto division of trading firm CMT Group, also participated in the round.
Improbable describes itself as a provider of technology and services to support multiplayer virtual worlds to more than 60 global game publishers. Its large scale simulation platform also supports the U.K.'s defense mission.
"Giving people the tools to design their own metaverses at the scale that Improbable enables, with Web 3 interoperability and composability to expand on each other’s creations, will result in some truly groundbreaking virtual experiences,” said Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in the press release.
Despite the projected revenue growth of metaverse industries, the products available to customers today cannot support enough people or "rich interactivity" to "fulfil the metaverse's promise," said Improbable. Others are closed platforms that don't match users' expectations of "sophisticated interoperability and shared governance," the company noted in the release.
M² will use Improbable's Morpheus Technology, which can support over 10,000 players and enables their interaction in dense virtual spaces, according to the press release. The network will also allow trade in digital assets and Web 3-style governance.
"M² introduces a way for game devs to create virtual assets and add them to the network," and will enable interoperability in between metaverses, Marine Boulot, vice president of public relations and communications at Improbable, told CoinDesk.
Improbable, which has raised more than $600 million in previous funding rounds, announced in January plans to accelerate its push into the metaverse and refocus its content strategy.

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