Improbable, a London, UK-based gaming infrastructure company, has received a $50m strategic investment from Chinese internet technology company NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES).
It follows a partnership agreed by the two companies which sees NetEase making games using Improbable’s SpatialOS Tech, its cloud-based development technology. The first game using SpatialOS technology will be announced later this year.
Founded in 2012, Improbable provides SpatialOS, a cloud platform that enables studios to design, build and manage richer and more immersive virtual worlds, going beyond the limits of a single-server architecture.
By building on SpatialOS, developers can use standard tools and game engines to build new gaming experiences. It allows hundreds of game engines, running in the cloud, to cooperate together to simulate a world much larger, richer and with more players than any single engine or server could.
SpatialOS is currently in a free open beta and any game developer interested in using SpatialOS can try the platform via https://improbable.io/games.
Improbable received $20m in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz in March 2015, a $30m follow-on Series A led by Horizons Ventures with participation from Temasek Holdings in July 2015, and a $502m Series B funding round, led by SoftBank, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Horizons Ventures in May 2017.
With the investment, the company will pursue new business opportunities with videogame developers and publishers in China and the Asia Pacific region.
FinSMEs
30/07/2018