Improbable breaks $1 bn valuation with SoftBank deal
mprobable, a British tech simulation company dreamt up at Cambridge University, has raised $502 million in a funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank, valuing it at over $1 billion and propelling it into the top ranks of the European industry.
Britain has a thriving tech start-up scene but few companies secure the large investments they need to become fully-fledged businesses, meaning many list in the United States or sell out to American giants such as Google or Microsoft.
Improbable was founded only five years ago by three friends, two of whom met while studying computer science at Cambridge and the other who went to Imperial College in London.
It uses cloud-based computing to digitally simulate complex real-world locations.
The software can be used in hyper-realistic gaming but also to design infrastructure and scenarios for self-driving vehicles.
“This is only just the beginning of where we need to go,” 29-yearold Improbable CEO Herman Narula said.
The $502 million marks the biggest ever early stage investment for a venture-backed European company and comes from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son who is building a $100 billion tech fund in his drive to become the Warren Buffett of the industry.
SoftBank bought Britain’s largest tech company ARM for £24.3 billion last year, its largest takeover.
Narula and his co-founders have not disclosed how much their own share of the company is now worth but will be sitting on fortunes — at least on paper.
The computer science graduate founded Improbable with fellow Cambridge student Rob Whitehead, 26, after they met at a dissertation review.
They later moved to London and joined forces with Goldman Sachs employee Peter Lipka, 28 who had studied for a masters in engineering in computing at Imperial.
Employing nearly 200 people, Improbable distributes computing power across thousands of servers to create highly detailed digital models, functioning like a vast supercomputer.
The size of the investment puts it on a par with the few world renowned tech start-ups to come out of Europe in recent years, including Skype and Spotify, and will help the company to invest in the platform and recruit more staff.
The investment gives SoftBank a non-controlling stake and a seat on the board for Deep Nishar, its managing director.
“Along with Machine Learning and Internet of Things, Improbable’s distributed computation technology represents a critical next frontier in computing,” he said.