Secondmind vs Improbable

Neither company has publicly disclosed a valuation, making a definitive size comparison difficult. Secondmind employs 1-50 people, while Improbable has 500-1000 employees.

Improbable has raised more in total funding at $700M, compared to Secondmind's $25M — a gap of $675M.

Improbable holds the higher Awaira Score at 68/100, compared to Secondmind's 45/100. The Awaira Score is a composite metric factoring in valuation, funding, stage, team size, and market presence — a 23-point gap that reflects meaningful differences in scale or traction.

Secondmind was founded by Eric Bax in 2019. Improbable was founded by Herman Narula in 2012. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Secondmind: Secondmind develops Bayesian machine learning optimisation technology for engineering applications, with a primary focus on automotive powertrain and vehicle systems calibration. The Cambridge company builds probabilistic machine learning tools that help automotive engineers optimise complex, multi-variable systems such as engine management, transmission control, and electrification systems with fewer physical experiments and less calibration time than traditional approaches.\n\nThe company raised approximately $25 million in a Series A round and acquired Prowler.io, a multi-agent reinforcement learning startup from Cambridge, in 2021 to expand its AI research capabilities. Secondmind customers include major automotive OEMs using the platform to reduce the number of dyno tests required for powertrain calibration, translating directly into reduced development costs and faster time-to-production for new vehicle programmes.\n\nSeconmind operates in the engineering AI optimisation market, competing with specialist automotive AI vendors and general-purpose Bayesian optimisation tools. The automotive calibration market is driven by increasing powertrain complexity as the industry transitions to hybrid and electric architectures, which require calibrating interactions between internal combustion engines, electric motors, and battery management systems that generate dramatically more control parameters than traditional powertrains. Cambridge University research partnerships provide the company a continuing source of methodological development in Bayesian and probabilistic machine learning. Improbable: Improbable develops large-scale simulation technology and virtual world infrastructure, originally focused on cloud-distributed game server simulation and subsequently pivoting to AI-powered synthetic environment generation and metaverse platform development. The London company built SpatialOS, a cloud platform for running distributed simulations of large, persistent virtual worlds, and has applied simulation capabilities to defence, urban planning, and entertainment applications.\n\nThe company raised approximately $700 million including a landmark $502 million SoftBank round in 2017 that was one of the largest venture rounds in European technology history. Improbable has undergone multiple strategic pivots, moving from gaming infrastructure to defence simulation contracts with clients including the UK Ministry of Defence, which uses simulation environments for training and wargaming. The company also built MSquared, a metaverse interoperability network, before refocusing on defence and AI simulation work.\n\nImprobable operates in an AI simulation market where demand from defence agencies, autonomous vehicle companies, and robotics firms has grown substantially. The company competes with simulation platforms from Epic Games (Unreal Engine), NVIDIA (Omniverse), and specialist defence simulation vendors. Its SoftBank backing and large cash reserves have enabled it to survive multiple market pivot cycles that would have ended less well-funded companies, and its current focus on AI-powered synthetic data generation for defence represents a growing government budget category.

Improbable was founded first in 2012, giving it 7 years of additional market experience. Secondmind was founded later in 2019. In AI, even a year or two of head start can translate into significantly more training data, customer relationships, and institutional knowledge.

Secondmind has approximately 1-50 employees, while Improbable has approximately 500-1000. A larger team often signals higher revenue or venture backing, but in AI, smaller teams are increasingly capable of building at scale.

Yes, Secondmind and Improbable are direct competitors — both operate in the ML Platform space and likely target overlapping customer segments. This comparison is especially relevant for buyers evaluating both platforms.