SoftBank-backed startup Improbable outlines plan for metaverse to rival Microsoft, Meta
Improbable CEO and co-founder Herman Narula.
Improbable/Viva Tech
Improbable, a SoftBank-backed startup developing huge virtual worlds, on Friday launched its plans for a network of metaverses that it hopes will one day be capable of hosting thousands of users and compete with platforms from U.S. tech giants such as Meta and Microsoft.
The British company, which was founded in 2012, released a white paper detailing its vision for MSquared, a “network of interoperable Web3 metaverses,” or 3D spaces in which people can live, work and interact with each other virtually. MSquared, which is a separate business entity from Improbable, raised $150 million from investors last year.
Google, Nvidia and Japanese cloud gaming firm Ubitus will serve as technical partners for the launch, Improbable said, providing the “cloud infrastructure, cloud pixel streaming, and video & audio technologies to enable unique, highly qualitative, easily accessible and seamless experiences in the metaverse.”
Behind MSquared is a complex feat of technical engineering with significant computing requirements. The service is intended to be accessible via cloud streaming, meaning you won’t have to download any software to jump into one of its worlds, similar to how movies and TV shows are accessed on Netflix.
What Improbable is launching isn’t a public release of its network of metaverses but rather the developer tools that will enable programmers to build their own metaverses. Developers began accessing its MML programming language as of Thursday evening, which enabled them to start creating objects in its digital worlds.
“The purpose of the metaverse is to enable new interactive entertainment experiences,” Herman Narula, Improbable’s co-founder and CEO, told CNBC.
Narula cited the video games Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite as examples of metaverses that are already “incredibly successful.”
That’s because they’ve enabled people to take part in mass community and entertainment events, from parties to shared gaming experiences to live music concerts.
Entities will be able to build metaverse experiences using Improbable’s Morpheus technology, which is designed to host mass-scale multiplayer online games, Improbable said.
Improbable was previously able to host 4,500 players in a demonstration in partnership with blockchain firm Yuga Labs. The second time Improbable attempted this, it hosted a record-breaking 7,200 concurrent users.
What Improbable is building
Improbable said there will be four categories of participants that take part in MSquared: metaverse owners, content creators, service providers and users.
WATCH: SoftBank-backed startup Improbable launches MSquared metaverse
Metaverse owners are entities building a metaverse, content creators are the ones producing experiences or objects within a metaverse, service providers are the ones offering storage and computing power and users are those visiting metaverses and consuming content.
The idea is that, eventually, more than 10,000 people would be able to access MSquared. It will initially only be accessible via desktop, however Improbable said the plan is for this to be expanded to mobile devices and consoles by the end of the year.
Narula said MSquared is something that can live independently of Improbable — in other words, if Improbable were to cease to exist, MSquared would continue on uninterrupted.
“This really isn’t about Improbable,” he told CNBC. “We’re hyper involved in it” but over time will become less involved as other partners and developers come in, he said, adding this was necessary so that users, developers and brands “don’t feel locked into working with Improbable.”
“I’m OK with that,” Narula said. “It’s not just that I’m OK with it — it’s an essential facet of making this an economic reality.”
To make MSquared a success, though, the company will need brands to build experiences with its technology. The company hasn’t named any of those brands yet, but said it expects to announce its first partner, a major sports brand, as soon as next week.
Improbable will compete with the likes of Meta and Microsoft, which are building their own metaverses, as well as Roblox and Epic Games.
What is Improbable?
The London firm, one of Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank’s biggest bets in Britain, was founded by Cambridge computer science students Narula and Rob Whitehead with the ambition of developing large-scale computer simulations and “synthetic environments.”
Improbable’s original business plan was to apply its technology in gaming, and the company had partnerships with numerous studios including Bossa Studios to develop huge, constantly rendering mass multiplayer online games with its SpatialOS technology.
These games struggled to achieve scale, though, and Improbable wound down many of its gaming projects some years ago as a result.
The company later pivoted its focus toward deals with military and defense departments of governments in the U.K. and U.S. This venture similarly struggled, and Improbable recently sold off its defense portfolio.
The tech industry has been betting that virtual and augmented reality will prove to be something of a “paradigm” shift in technology akin to the invention of the internet or the smartphone.
Some are calling it the technology’s “iPhone moment,” in reference to effect Apple’s now ubiquitous handset had on consumers and businesses globally. Apple recently announced its first virtual and augmented reality headset, called the Vision Pro.
Improbable is taking a different route to companies like Meta, which has its Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds digital community software, and Microsoft, which is behind the HoloLens mixed reality products.
For one, you won’t need a headset to jump into an MSquared space, as the software will be desktop-based. And the experience will be a more “decentralized” one, Narula said, adding current metaverse platforms such as Meta and Microsoft’s are “walled gardens.”
‘European Union of the metaverse’
Improbable is aiming to make its metaverse a “decentralized” one in which users can exchange goods directly and across different platforms. The company has made a big bet on crypto and blockchain and supports digital assets like nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which aim to let users prove ownership of virtual items.
Improbable will support numerous forms of payment and tokens, and may one day partner with a third-party project to bring in a digital token to support and enable the network. However, this token wouldn’t be created or issued by Improbable or M2, Improbable said.
The aim is for MSquared to incorporate interoperability, so users could transfer content and assets across different worlds and platforms — sort of like a “European Union of the metaverse,” Narula said.
That doesn’t mean it won’t have aspects of centralization, and Narula explained that some parts of its virtual universe would require centralized controls to prevent people from abusing its systems.
Civil rights campaigners and regulators have raised fears about the metaverse exacerbating some of the ills of the web. Improbable launched its own think tank devoted to discussing what the metaverse should look like and its social and ethical implications earlier this year.
WATCH: Crypto enthusiasts want to remake the internet with ‘Web3.’ Here’s what that means
A Tesla robotaxi drives on the street along South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025
Joel Angel Juarez | Reuters
Tesla was contacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday after videos posted on social media showed the company’s robotaxis driving in a chaotic manner on public roads in Austin, Texas.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker debuted autonomous trips in Austin on Sunday, opening the service to a limited number of riders by invitation only.
In the videos shared widely online, one Tesla robotaxi was spotted traveling the wrong way down a road, and another was shown braking hard in the middle of traffic, responding to “stationary police vehicles outside its driving path,” among several other examples.
A spokesperson for NHTSA said in an e-mail that the agency “is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information.”
Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy, and regulatory counsel Casey Blaine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The federal safety regulator says it doesn’t “pre-approve new technologies or vehicle systems.” Instead, automakers certify that each vehicle model they make meets federal motor vehicle safety standards. The agency says it will investigate “incidents involving potential safety defects,” and take “necessary actions to protect road safety,” after assessing a wide array of reports and information.
NHTSA previously initiated an investigation into possible safety defects with Tesla’s FSD-Supervised technology, or FSD Beta systems, following injurious and fatal accidents. That probe is ongoing.
The Tesla robotaxis in Austin are Model Y SUVs equipped with the company’s latest FSD Unsupervised software and hardware. The pilot robotaxi service, involving fewer than two-dozen vehicles, operates during daylight hours and only in good weather, with a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat.
The service is now limited to invited users, who agree to the terms of Tesla’s “early access program.” Those who have received invites are mostly promoters of Tesla’s products, stock and CEO.
While the rollout sent Tesla shares up 8% on Monday, the launch fell shy of fulfilling Musk’s many driverless promises over the past decade.
In 2015, Musk told shareholders Tesla cars would achieve “full autonomy” within three years. In 2016, he said a Tesla EV would be able to make a cross-country drive without needing any human intervention before the end of 2017. And in 2019, on a call with institutional investors that helped him raise more than $2 billion, Musk said Tesla would have 1 million robotaxi-ready vehicles on the road in 2020, able to complete 100 hours of driving work per week each, making money for their owners.
None of that has happened.
Meanwhile, Alphabet-owned Waymo says it has surpassed 10 million paid trips last month. Competitors in China, including Baidu’s Apollo Go, WeRide and Pony.ai, are also operating commercial robotaxi fleets.
WATCH: Tesla launches robotaxis in Austin as robotaxi race heats up
Mustafa Hatipoglu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Meta spoke with artificial intelligence startup Runway about a potential takeover ahead of its multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI, CNBC confirmed Monday.
Runway is best known for its AI video-generation tools and earned a spot on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list earlier this month.
The deal talks between Meta and Runway did not progress far and dissolved, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to the confidential nature of the discussions.
Bloomberg earlier reported the talks. Meta declined to comment.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been aggressively pushing to bolster his company’s AI efforts in recent months. The social media giant invested $14.3 billion into Scale AI in June, and it has also approached the startups Safe Superintelligence and Perplexity AI about potential acquisitions this year.
Meta agreed to a 49% stake in Scale AI and hired away founder Alexandr Wang along with a few other employees from the company.
While Meta was unsuccessful in its efforts to buy Superintelligence outright, Daniel Gross, the company’s CEO, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman are joining Meta’s AI efforts, where they will work on products under Wang.
A woman walks past a logo of WhatsApp during a Meta event in Mumbai, India, on Sept. 20, 2023.
Niharika Kulkarni | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Meta is pushing back against a ban on WhatsApp from government devices.
The chief administrative officer, or CAO, of the U.S. House of Representatives told staffers on Monday that they are not allowed to use Meta’s popular messaging app. The CAO cited a lack of transparency about WhatsApp’s data privacy and security practices as the reason for the ban, according to a report by Axios that cited an internal email from the government office.
The CAO told House staff members in the email that they are not allowed to download WhatsApp on their government devices or access the app on their smartphones or desktop computers, the report said. Staff members must remove WhatsApp from their devices if they have the app installed on their devices, the report said.
“Protecting the People’s House is our topmost priority, and we are always monitoring and analyzing for potential cybersecurity risks that could endanger the data of House Members and staff,” U.S. House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor told CNBC in a written statement.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone on Monday responded to the report via a post on X, saying the company disagrees “with the House Chief Administrative Officer’s characterization in the strongest possible terms.”
“We know members and their staffs regularly use WhatsApp and we look forward to ensuring members of the House can join their Senate counterparts in doing so officially,” Stone said.
In a separate X post, Stone said WhatsApp’s encrypted nature provides a “higher level of security than most of the apps on the CAO’s approved list that do not offer that protection.”
Some of the messaging apps the CAO said are acceptable alternatives to WhatsApp include Microsoft Teams, Signal and Apple’s iMessage, the Axios report said.
Meta is currently embroiled in an antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission over the social media company’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.
Last week, Meta debuted ads in WhatsApp in an effort to monetize the app that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has deemed “the next chapter” for his company’s history.
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