Diving head first into the metaverse with Herman Narula, co-founder and CEO of Improbable
We caught up with Herman Narula, co-founder and CEO of well-funded UK tech firm Improbable, to talk about its metaverse tech, its recent partnership with Yuga Labs and its plans for the future.
With around $600 million in funding raised to date, and close to 1,000 people on the payroll, UK tech scale-up Improbable probably (ha) needs little introduction to our audience. In many ways, though, a decade into its existence the really exciting days for the 'metaverse technology' company seem to be still ahead of them.
That's also a sentiment shared by Herman Narula, the affable co-founder and chief executive of Improbable, who said that technology is finally catching up with the ambitious goals the company had set for itself in the early days.
Improbable has created a technology dubbed Morpheus that allows social interactions within virtual worlds, where thousands of people can talk to each other in lag-free environments, offering its virtual world-building services to a slew of entertainment companies, academic institutions, gaming companies, and even governments around the world.
Improbable has created a technology dubbed Morpheus that allows social interactions within virtual worlds, where thousands of people can talk to each other in lag-free environments, offering its virtual world-building services to a slew of entertainment companies, academic institutions, gaming companies, and even governments around the world.
Improbable recently secured another $150 million in financing to establish and develop M², a network of 'interoperable Web3 metaverses' powered by its Morpheus tech. Even more recently, the company found itself squarely in the spotlight when it partnered up with Yuga Labs, the creators of the well-known Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT brand.
Improbable worked with Yuga to build, service, and operate Otherside, basically a gamified MetaRPG universe where the players own the world. Earlier this month, the company assisted in 'First Trip', the highly-anticipated tech demo of Otherside: about 4,500 people were able to dance, sing and talk simultaneously. Check this video to see it in action.
You can also watch our interview with Narula on our YouTube channel.
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Host
Robin Wauters @ Tech.eu 🇺🇦
European tech journalist and analyst; founder of @tech_eu, previously @TheNextWeb & @TechCrunch. Also proud co-founder of @StartupLensEU and @BeCentralBxl.