Improbable, the UK’s poster child for virtual worlds technology for more than a decade, has achieved profitability for the first time.
The London company, which made a loss of £129 million 2020 then £152m in 2021, adopted a more targeted operating model in 2022 amid the hype of the metaverse, boosting revenues and narrowing losses to just £19m.
Now it has filed its 2023 accounts to Companies House – showing a profit of £11m. Excluding one-time items, revenue increased by 37% to a total of £66m.
The company also ended the year with a strong cash position of £185m, driven by successful exits of its initial ventures including gaming division Multiplayer Group and its defence and national security business.
Improbable is now positioned at the forefront of addressing scale in traditional cloud computing and the development of emerging technologies for the metaverse, blockchain and AI.
Its MSquared metaverse platform now has many external content developers in early access mode and tens of metaverse projects are being regularly tested with consumers. It has adopted a ‘venture builder’ model.
“A decade ago, we embarked on the challenging yet immensely rewarding journey of focusing on distributed systems for virtual worlds,” said Herman Narula, founder and CEO.
“Over this period, we have honed our expertise in bringing complex technology products to market, seeded and grown businesses, and developed proprietary technology with significant barriers to entry.
“Two years ago, we doubled down on our commitment to the metaverse. In 2023, we recorded revenues of £66m and achieved a total profit of £11m, driven by growth, cost discipline and divestment of high-value assets.
“We’ve uniquely demonstrated the ability to pursue distinct, real businesses simultaneously. Venture building has proven to be the optimal model for both Improbable and the metaverse, as experimenting with various use cases is key to achieving adoption.
“Through strategic investments in both large partnerships and startups, we continue to advance the case for the metaverse. Our ambition is to shape the future, and our experience provides us with unique insights to do so.
“I extend my heartfelt thanks to our leadership team, especially our CFO, Dan Odell, for their unwavering dedication in propelling Improbable to its current place of strength.”