Online gaming world enabler Improbable has raised $502 million in a second round of investors, including SoftBank. Improbable has created an operating system, SpatialOS, that marshals the power of cloud computing and distributed platforms to enable small studios to develop giant worlds.
The London-based company showed off a few of those games at the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC).
CEO Herman Narula told me in an interview at the time that the company has launched its open beta for SpatialOS.
Developers working on SpatialOS-based games include Worlds Adrift, the upcoming game from Bossa Studios; Chronicles of Elyria by Soulbound Studios, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game built with the Unreal engine; Seed by Klang, a game of planetary settlement set in a shared, persistent world, created by a team including former senior CCP (Eve Online) employees; Lazarus by Spilt Milk Studios, a multiplayer top-down 2D shooter set in a huge galaxy populated by artificially intelligent alien factions locked in a war for territory; and Vanishing Stars: Colony Wars by Ninpo Game Studio, a new type of massively multiplayer real-time strategy game, played across thousands of star systems, each with their own planets to battle on.
Deep Nishar of SoftBank has joined the Improbable board following this investment, which sees SoftBank taking a non-controlling stake in the company. Earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Horizons Ventures and Temasek Holdings also participated. Improbable had received $20 million in a first round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz in March 2015.
Solina Chau, founder of Horizons Ventures, said in a statement, “Having backed Improbable from the start, we continue to see huge potential in the application of its technology, both for solving real-world problems and in changing the future of the games industry. Improbable is an exciting, ambitious company that we’re honored to be a part of.”