Improbable Strategy Day was held on 3 October, 2022 and included a live demo of the latest generation of its metaverse technology.
- The environment can support tens of thousands of concurrent users in a single spot while processing audio and rich interactions.
- Improbable provides an end-to-end service for brands and companies to build and operate entire metaverses, and has a pipeline of partners committed to being interoperable on the M² network.
Improbable also released its 2021 results and guidance:
- 2022 revenue growth of 2.5x to 3.0x 2021’s.
- Bookings for 2023 already exceed 2022’s and profitability is projected in FY 2023, demonstrating Improbable’s compelling proposition, strong product/market fit and technological edge, and the company’s substantially improved financial profile.
London, 3 October, 2022: Improbable held on 3 October, 2022 its annual Strategy Day, presenting a strategic update of the company and its business and financial performance for 2021 and 2022.
2021 financial results highlights are:
- Revenue increased by 60% to £30m, driven mainly by games services.
- Preparing the organisation to adapt to its new shape and business model, the company recognised one-time charges associated with the divestments from the Edmonton and Midwinter games studios and its exit from operations in China.
- Substantial investment continued in promising Defence activity.
- The end-to-end metaverse strategy launched at the end of 2021. New business and revenue models are delivering a significantly improved financial profile, with:
- 2022 revenue growth projected to be 2.5x to 3.0x compared to 2021, supported by business momentum in metaverse services and also continued growth in games services.
- Profitability targeted in FY 2022, supported by revenue growth, operating cost efficiencies, and gains on the sale of the studios.
- 2023 projected revenue in excess of 2022 revenue based on signed contracts and sustained profit achievable during 2023.
- Strong working capital position with ~£175m in net assets at the end of Q3 2022.
Herman Narula, co-founder and CEO of Improbable, said: *“Our new model is rooted in the metaverse, and we are very excited to see that the technology, services and expertise we have developed over a decade building virtual worlds are now proving to be such a fantastic match for pioneering brands seeking a new form of direct engagement with their fans and new revenue streams. Our partnership with Yuga Labs has also made us lay the foundation for new experiences with strong creative brands, and the spectacular response of the Otherside community makes us very excited to be developing more of those experiences with other partners in the coming months”.*
Additionally, Improbable confirmed during the session that it was in the process of closing a financing round of $100m, composed of new and existing investors, at a valuation in excess of $3bn.
- The lead investor in this round is Elrond, a blockchain platform for Web3 payments, DeFi and the metaverse. Elrond has introduced two key innovations in blockchain: it brings a 1,000-fold cumulative improvement in throughput and execution speed, enabling linear scalability with a fast, efficient and secure consensus mechanism. Thus, Elrond can scale beyond 100,000 transactions per second (TPS), with negligible cost. Its goal is to become the backbone of a permissionless, borderless, globally accessible internet economy.
- The investment is intended to contribute to supporting the company’s growth and acceleration, increasing capacity to service more metaverse customers, furthering cutting-edge technological innovation and allowing the company to weather a challenging macroeconomic environment.
Beniamin Mincu, Elrond founder and CEO, said: *"This investment is instrumental for Elrond, in initiating a deeper partnership with Improbable. As we gear up for our X-Day early November, we aim to redefine the utility of blockchain, and gather our community to push beyond the limits of Web3. We are excited to invest and build together, at a critical time when the value and utility of the metaverse are being defined and shaped.”*
Herman Narula, Improbable co-founder and CEO, said: *“We are particularly pleased to be partnering with Elrond. We share a common vision for Web3 and the metaverse and expect to benefit from their leading expertise in blockchain technology.*
“In 2022, while we reshaped our business and improved our financial profile, we continued to add new technology capabilities such as crowd audio, diverse crowd rendering, and improved density up to 2 billion operations per second. We also developed new services tying Web2 and Web3 and will soon announce more about the M² network.”
You can watch the highlights from Improbable's 2022 Strategy Day here.
More on 2022’s business successes:
Metaverse services
- In April 2022, Yuga Labs and Improbable announced their partnership to develop Otherside, Yuga Labs’ metaverse. Otherside is a gamified, interoperable metaverse blending mechanics from massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and Web3-enabled virtual worlds. A ‘First Trip’ to the Otherside was organised in July 2022 and gathered over 4,600 concurrent voyagers in a record-breaking experience.
- The business has a strong pipeline of partners to be announced over the coming months.
Games services / MPG
- Following MPG’s successful support of Respawn and Electronic Arts for the launch of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond in December 2020, the MPG team has been supporting the latest season releases of Apex Legends. Season 14, launched in August 2022, has been the most successful yet, with a maximum concurrent player count of over 500,000 players. The game has a conservative estimate of over 100 million registered players.
- Building upon the relationship developed since 2018 with Mediatonic and Epic, MPG also worked on the latest release of Fall Guys, launched in June 2022. The original Fall Guys sold over 7 million copies on PC within one month of release, and was the most downloaded game of all time on Sony’s PlayStation Plus service. Fall Guys: Free For All, released in June 2022, reached over 50 million players within 2 weeks of release.
- Finally, MPG won important new contracts in 2022, including with Warner Bros and Activision Blizzard.
Defence
- Improbable Defence is a strategic partner for the MoD to deliver synthetic environments and support the establishment of the MoD’s software factory, the Digital Foundry. In 2022, the business launched Skyral, a platform democratising synthetic environments, and has broadened its portfolio of projects across national security and emergency services communities in both the UK and the US.
- Improbable Defence’s decision support and training capabilities are currently being used in live international military deployments.
To know more about what happened at Improbable in 2022, read here.
To know more about the M² raise, read here.