Improbable has announced a $502 million USD Series B funding round, led by SoftBank, with Series A investors joining this with more investments. The British virtual reality startup was only founded five years ago by Cambridge computer science graduates, but this new investment increases their value above $1 billion USD.
Masayoshi Son and SoftBank have joined existing investors and supporters of Improbable, and will assist with "realising [their] vision of massive scale virtual worlds and the transformative impact they can have on how we live our lives."
The investments right now will be dedicated to building the technology and the business, with Improbable "working towards a future in which participatory virtual worlds and simulations of unimaginable scale become ubiquitous. We think this is potentially as exciting and important a technical development as work on AI or the Internet of Things."
Although games right now are exciting, Improbable says that they want to evolve these to include huge worlds and more resonant experiences "for a much broader segment of society than previously imagined. It's our goal to solve the critical technical problems and unlock that future."
Improbable believe that they now have the resources to start pursuing these goals, and that their technology will also help those in the real world as well. Do you think VR is a wise investment?