Wayve raises $1.2bn Series D to scale robotaxi plans

UK-based autonomous driving startup Wayve has secured $1.2bn successful Series D backing astatine post-money valuation of $8.6bn.

Including further “milestone-based capital” commitments from Uber, Wayve said the full funds raised successful this circular would beryllium $1.5bn.

The circular was led by task firms Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Existing backers Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber besides participated, on with automotive partners Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis.

Additional investors see Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures and Schroders Capital.

Wayve said the backing volition enactment its displacement from research-focused improvement towards scaled commercialized rollout of its autonomous driving exertion with planetary automotive and mobility partners.

Uber and Wayve purpose to present their archetypal commercialized robotaxi offering successful London successful 2026, followed by enlargement into much than 10 markets.

Under the partnership, Wayve volition supply its AI Driver bundle for Level 4-capable vehicles supplied by automaker partners, portion Uber volition negociate fleet ownership and operations.

Wayve said it plans to statesman rolling retired supervised autonomy bundle successful user vehicles from 2027, initially delivering Level 2+ “hands-off” functionality.

The institution licenses its AI Driver straight to manufacturers, enabling vehicle-specific adaptation without dependence connected high-definition maps oregon location-specific engineering, and designed to run utilizing onboard compute and sensors.

Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall said: “With $1.5bn secured, we are gathering for a full addressable marketplace that spans each conveyance that moves. Autonomy volition not standard done city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone.

“This concern accelerates our way to wide commercialized deployment and positions america to physique the autonomy furniture that volition powerfulness immoderate conveyance everywhere.”

According to the company, its strategy has tally “zero-shot” - without city-specific fine-tuning - crossed much than 500 cities successful Europe, North America and Japan implicit the past year.

This deployment has been supported by grooming information collected crossed implicit 70 countries and aggregate conveyance platforms.

"Wayve raises $1.2bn Series D to standard robotaxi plans" was primitively created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand.

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