SoftBank £389 million investment in Improbable

Overview:

• Improbable has raised $502 million (£390 million) in a funding round led by Japan's SoftBank, valuing the company at over $1 billion.
• The investment will be used to for technology development and to make additional hires for its London and San Francisco offices. 
• Improbable is a British tech simulation company formed at Cambridge University that uses cloud-based computing to digitally simulate complex real-world locations.
• The software can be used in hyper-realistic gaming but also to design infrastructure and scenarios for self-driving vehicles.
• This is the largest ever Series B investment in Europe and the biggest venture financing round by a private British company in history.
• The deal follows on from SoftBank's acquisition of Britain's largest tech company ARM for £24.3 billion in 2016 - SoftBank £24.3 billion acquisition of ARM Holdings.

Katrin Kostadinova - Data analyst