Autonomous vehicles startup Wayve has raised a $1.5bn Series D funding round, backed by big-name investors like Nvidia, SoftBank and Microsoft.
Founded in 2017, Wayve — which is developing self-driving software for carmakers — has rapidly scaled up its commercial operations in recent years, signing deals with carmakers in Japan and ramping up expansion plans in Germany.
The round was led by American VC firm Eclipse, London-based Balderton and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, with participation from Nvidia and Microsoft, as well as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, the British Business Bank and Schroders Capital.
US ride-hailing giant Uber also participated in the round, while also contributing an additional $300m to support Wayve’s planned “robotaxi” rollout globally. With commercial trials set to get underway this year, Uber customers will soon ride in Wayve-powered cars in countries around the world.
“We've been proud to support Wayve since the early days, backing [CEO and founder] Alex [Kendall] and his team as they pursued an ambitious — and at the time rather contrarian — vision for embodied AI,” says Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton.
“Born out of a tiny lab in Cambridge and now a global leader in its field, Wayve represents the very best of European innovation: world-class technology, global ambition and real-world deployment at scale.”
Kendall previously appeared on the Sifted Podcast, where he discussed the company’s approach to autonomous driving, how to give robots feedback and what it’s like being vindicated by Elon Musk.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Kendall said: “This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.”
