SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz Lead $150M Raising for Metaverse Startup Impossible

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.

Improbable is a technology and service provider to multiplayer virtual worlds to over 60 game publishers worldwide. Its large scale simulation platform is also used to support 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.

Improbable stated that despite the expected revenue growth in metaverse industries, products currently available to customers cannot support enough people or provide rich interactivity to “fulfill metaverse’s promise.” Others are closed platforms, which don’t fulfill users’ expectations of sophisticated interoperability or shared governance, the company said in a 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 allow digital asset trade 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.

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.