Metaverse virtual reality and internet futuristic streaming media symbol with VR technology and augmented reality as a computer media concept in a 3D illustration style. (Getty images)
Correction 12/14/2022 at 11:25 am ET: The original version of this story incorrectly identified Michael Putz of BlackShark.ai as being associated with Improbable. This story has been corrected to remove that mention.
WASHINGTON — Improbable U.S. Defense & National Security, a tech firm looking to break into the American defense sphere, has shut its doors.
The group was a subsidiary of the British-based Improbable, which bills itself as “the metaverse technology company.” The company’s website claims over 1,000 global employees and $600 million in investment. Its US defense arm, which has focused heavily on the creation of a military metaverse, began telling staff late Thursday that it was shutting down, with the subsidiary expected to officially close its doors early this week. (Improbable’s commercial arm will remain open.)
Breaking Defense first heard rumors of Improbable Defense’s demise on Friday, but requests for comment to the company were met with silence. On Saturday, Caitlin Dohrman, the president and general manager for the subsidiary, wrote in a LinkedIn post that the decision was “heartbreaking” but was made by the larger firm’s leadership “out of necessity due to Improbable’s refocus on its commercial metaverse business and need to accelerate its path to profitability amidst challenging macroeconomic conditions.”
RELATED: Read Breaking Defense’s deep dive into the military metaverse
“The decision was not a reflection of the quality of our work or the success of the U.S. business. Our government customers and industry partners are equally disappointed that the highly unique and transformative synthetic environment solutions we were delivering will no longer be available,” Dohrman wrote. “This decision affects not only our employees, but the U.S. national security community as well.”
Among the company’s board members were former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox and Michael Kratsios, former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering.
In September, the company announced it was taking in $100 million in funding, with a large chunk of that coming from blockchain company Elrond, as part of a broader funding push from cryptocurrency and NFT companies over the last year, according to the Financial Times. It is likely the crash of major crypto backer FTX put increased pressure on Improbable’s corporate offices, driving the decision to shutter its US offices.
After publication, Marine Boulot, a spokeswoman for Improbable, wrote to specify that while the US arm of Improbable’s defense interests is shuttering, the company remains committed to the defense market, stating that “the US office is a relatively small part of the Defence subsidiary, which is up and running, and delivers critical mission outcomes for its customers.”
“This decision comes to accelerate Improbable Defence’s path to profitability in what are definitely some very challenging macroeconomic conditions, in particular in the tech sector, and in Defence tech,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “Improbable Defence has decided to focus on profitable areas of its business pipeline, which meant unfortunately closing the US office, and work with US defence industry partners to continue to grow opportunities in the US through joint GTM partnerships.”
The company had a booth at the I/ITSEC training and simulation conference in early December, where it was demonstrating its synthetic environment, Skyral, to “create the large-scale, high-density, interoperable environments their users need, and do so more quickly and cost effectively than ever before.” A company executive, Robert Kleinhample, served as moderator for a panel on “Vision of the military metaverse.”
The metaverse is a concept that has dominated technology firms in recent years, to the point that tech giant Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in October 2021, and has sunk $9.4 billion into metaverse-related projects just in 2022 — much to the chagrin of investors. The Defense Department has lagged behind in interest, but over the last year the term “metaverse” has begun to appear frequently in talks from top officers, even though there seems to be little agreement about what it means or its actual usefulness for military operations.
Enterprise-wide training: the Army’s $3.5B program for multi-service combat readiness
The competition for Warfighter Training and Readiness Solutions will bring together training networks, combat training centers and live ranges across the DoD enterprise.
Norway’s top officer on his ‘biggest challenge,’ next frigate and new NATO neighbors
Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s Chief of Defense, talks to Breaking Defense about his plans for spending on new frigates and subs, the challenges of upgrading Norway’s “digital backbone” and refilling the military’s stocks.
