Wayve Secures $1.2 Billion in New Capital to Scale Robotaxis
Waymo launches to select riders in four new cities, Tesla loses bid to toss $243 million autopilot crash settlement, and is Uber’s acquisition of SpotHero actually an AV bet?
Top Stories of the Week
Self-driving tech startup Wayve raises $1.2B from Nvidia, Uber, and three automakers (link). The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and the total raise could reach $1.5B thanks to another $300M from Uber contingent on deploying robotaxis, starting in London. It also saw participation from global automakers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Stellantis—all of which plan to use Wayve’s tech.
Related: My interview with Wayve CEO Alex Kendall (link).
Wayve’s pitch is its hardware agnostic, map light approach. Its software can run on whatever sensors and chips an OEM already has in the vehicle, positioning it as more of a horizontal autonomy layer than a vertically integrated operator.
We do not know how much Uber invested as part of the initial $1.2 billion, only that it participated and could invest up to another $300 million tied to deployment milestones.
Uber has been active on the AV investment front, so it is worth looking at Nuro as a comparison.
In Nuro’s $203 million Series E, Uber participated as part of the second $97 million tranche alongside Nvidia and others. Separately, Uber disclosed plans to invest several hundreds of millions of dollars into Nuro as part of a broader robotaxi partnership, with only part of that included in the Series E and the rest tied to development and commercial milestones. In that case, Uber’s capital was meaningful to the round.
The scale and context here are different.
Wayve just raised $1.2 billion from top tier investors and multiple global automakers. It is not capital constrained and does not need Uber’s money to survive. If anything, Wayve likely needs deployment partners and demand more than cash.
So what is Uber buying with a potential $300 million follow on? We do not know the exact structure or terms. But if I had to guess, the real prize is positioning.
In the US, Uber will likely be playing catch up to Waymo for a long time. London could be different since Uber is strong in the UK and Waymo is not there yet. If Wayve’s first meaningful robotaxi deployment happens in London and runs through Uber, that gives Uber a chance to compete head to head in a major global city instead of entering from behind.
With Nuro, Uber’s capital helped support a company that was clearly in fundraising mode. With Wayve, Uber is investing into strength. The open question is whether that positioning is worth what could ultimately be a $300 million+ commitment.
Waymo opens robotaxi service to ‘select riders’ in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Orlando (link). With this expansion, Waymo now operates in 10 cities total. The company says select riders in those markets who’ve downloaded the Waymo app will start receiving invitations to take their first local rides, with broader access rolling out over time and full public availability expected by the end of 2026. They’ll also be deploying their fifth-generation Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in these cities.
Related: Waymo’s Expansion Is Leaving Tesla In The Dust (link).
Other Stuff
Uber is acquiring parking app SpotHero as it moves beyond ride-hailing and food delivery (link). Uber COO Andrew MacDonald says the goal is to improve the experience by adding more supply and bringing down prices through UberOne and other pricing innovations. But I’m not sure I fully see the customer-side synergy yet. In many cases, parking is literally the alternative to Uber.
That said, I do see more compelling synergies on the AV and fleet side. In a robotaxi world, distributed parking garages could serve as staging, charging, and overflow depots, effectively becoming a flexible supply buffer that Uber can price and allocate dynamically between consumers and fleet operations.
Related: Uber’s SpotHero Acquisition Is an Autonomous Infrastructure Bet | PA Dispatch No. 12 (link).
Waymo: Over 200 million fully autonomous miles wrapped and millions to go! (link). They’ve also surpassed 1M fully autonomous freeway miles and plan to expand freeway driving to additional cities, starting with employee-only rides (link). Personally, I have not been blown away with the freeway driving product as it’s way too inconsistent with routing and availability.
Congress debates federal regulation on self-driving cars (link).
Radars for end-to-end autonomy (link). Another Y Combinator startup working on autonomy.
Everyone wants an autonomous car, but today they are cost prohibitive because they rely on multiple lidars. The answer is radar, it’s tens of dollars, already in most cars, and works in all weather. The problem: no one has built a radar compatible with end-to-end training, which is how all modern autonomous vehicles learn to drive. We built the radar hardware and radar simulator to change that.
Stanford Athletics and Waymo Introduce Autonomous Ride-Hailing Service as Official Ride-Hailing Partner (link).
Uber Wants To Win The Autonomous Vehicle Race. So It’s Betting On All Of The Horses (link).
‘Tampa, FL and Buffalo, NY no longer part of Waymo’s planned cities’ (link).
Tesla loses bid to toss $243 million verdict in fatal Autopilot crash suit (link).
An Insurance Expert Appraises the Safety Record of Self-Driving Cars (link).
Waymo’s Wild-Looking Chinese Van Is Ready For Prime Time (link).
Self-driving shuttles to be tested out at Newark Liberty International Airport, Port Authority says (link).
Waymo announces Chicago and Charlotte expansion as driverless rollout accelerates (link). Like in previous launches, Waymo is starting with manual testing and mapping with safety drivers before moving toward fully driverless operations and eventually opening up ride-hailing to the public. There’s no timeline yet for when driverless rides will go live in either city, but the pace of expansion is clearly picking up.
Related: A fleet of Waymo spotted in Chicago near the new downtown Google office (link).
What else we’re reading/listening to
The AV Market Strategist by Daniel Abreu Marques: Waymo’s Shocking Data Release, Uber Invest $100M in Robotaxi Infrastructure (link). Love the comparative chart Daniel shared on Waymo vs Chinese robotaxi operators.
Related: The TDD Podcast is back! Monday’s episode will feature an interview with Dr. Missy Cummings on Waymo’s Remote Assistance Program - you won’t want to miss it. Subscribe now so your feed automatically updates.
Comparing Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla After 150+ Rides (link).
AVs behaving badly
‘Delivery Robot FAILS’ (link).
‘The future of transportation has been doing laps behind my building for 20 minutes’ (link).
In all seriousness though, have you noticed any weird Waymo routing lately? I personally experienced a strange situation last weekend and witnessed another one a couple days later.
‘My Tesla tried to drive me into a lake today!’ (link). This reminds me of something..
Neat Jobs
Applied AI Engineer - Multimodal Transformers at Kodiak (link) via Shubham Shrivastava.
Program Manager, International Regulatory at Waymo (link) via Melissa Ruhl.
Software Engineer - Sensor Systems, Robot Software at Wayve (link) via Yongbo Qian.
Internships at Zoox:
Lidar Engineer Intern (link) via Selena Seddon.
Signal Processing Intern (link) via Brian Mitchell.
Speaking of internships, congrats to our friend Ethan McKanna, who just got accepted as a summer intern at Tesla (link)!
Here’s a full list of the jobs we’ve featured (link).
Cool Rides
‘I’m terrified of freeways in the rain. So I had a minor freakout when my Waymo took the freeway in yesterday’s storm’ (link).
‘Just experienced one of China’s self-driving taxi services for only $0.40’ (link).
‘This was weird…If I’m honest, the Waymo had fewer close calls than my human driver yesterday’ (link).
‘Watch my mom’s soul leave her body as she realizes we are taking a self-driving Uber’ (link).
Shout-outs
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Until next week :)
-Harry
Thanks for the shoutout Harry!