Wayve’s self-driving technology has attracted a diverse group of investors in the company’s latest $1.2 billion funding round, including three automakers, top venture and institutional investors, and backers Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber. Uber’s funding could reach $1.5 billion, with an additional $300 million conditional on the introduction of robot taxis starting in London.
It seems like everyone wants a piece of the British startup, which is currently valued at $8.6 billion. This funding round demonstrates the eagerness of Big Tech, traditional automakers, and the investor community to capitalize on the burgeoning self-driving industry.
Wayve offers what founder and CEO Alex Kendall calls a “contrarian” option in the self-driving space — contrarian in both its approach to technology and its business model, he told TechCrunch in an interview Tuesday.
“I think the technology chessboard is being set where different companies have invested in their technology strategies, and now the commercial chessboard is being set up,” Kendall said. “We took a very contrarian mindset on the technology side. We were the first to build end-to-end deep learning for self-driving cars and pioneered this approach. Now, at this stage of moving into commercialization, we also take a contrarian business model approach.”
Launched in 2017, Wayve takes a self-learning approach to its software. The company has developed a software layer with an end-to-end neural network that does not require high-resolution maps and uses data only to teach the vehicle how to drive.
This data-driven learning approach powers two products: the “Eyes-On” assisted driving system and the “Eyes-Off” fully automated driving system, which can be applied to robotaxis and civilian vehicles that can handle all driving in a given environment.
The company touts the nature of its technology, which is independent of specific sensors or maps, to customers. Self-driving software takes data from all the sensors on the vehicle and directs the system’s driving decisions. Wayve’s software can also run on any chip that OEM partners already have in their vehicles.
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However, it’s worth noting that backer Nvidia has had a close development relationship with Wayve since 2018. The startup’s third-generation platform, announced last fall, uses an in-vehicle computing self-driving car development kit called Nvidia Drive AGX Thor. The third-generation platform will enable Wayve to offer blind advanced driver assistance systems and Level 4 (fully driverless) capabilities that operate on city streets and highways.
While the company’s technology is somewhat similar to Tesla’s self-driving efforts, there are significant differences in the business model.
Wayve doesn’t want you to be the operator of a hands-free driver assistance system or a “keep an eye on” fully automated driving system. (For comparison, Waymo primarily operates its own robotaxi fleet, although it does have partners.) Nor does Wayve want to build vehicles with its own software bundled, like Tesla does. Instead, the company sells its “embodied AI” to automakers and technology companies like Uber.
Kendall claims this is the business model with the largest addressable market, and it’s possible because Wave has built an AI that generalizes to different hardware and environments.
“When building an autonomy stack that is specific to sensors or computing architecture, [or] If you’re building in a location that requires things like mapping, option 3 is not an option,” Kendall said of the business model his company has chosen.
Nissan and Uber are both Wayve customers. Nissan said the startup’s self-driving software will be used to power advanced driver assistance systems in its cars starting in 2027. Meanwhile, Uber plans to begin commercial trials with vehicles equipped with Wave’s software later this year.
But the relationship with Uber appears poised to expand far beyond the pilot program. A statement Tuesday from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi hints at the scope of the partnership and investment with Wave.
“We are very proud to continue to deepen our partnership with Waveve and plan to expand together into more than 10 markets around the world.Wayve’s powerful end-to-end approach is built for scale, safety and effectiveness, and we are excited to be working with Wayve across multiple OEMs and geographies. We will have more information on this soon.”
The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. New investors include the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures, Schroders Capital and other global institutional investors, the company said.
Global car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis are also participating, and all will use Wave’s technology. NVIDIA, which participated in Wayve’s $1.05 billion Series C round, said last year that it was considering a $500 million strategic investment in Wayve’s next round of funding. Although Nvidia participated, Kendall declined to say exactly how much it invested or whether it approached that $500 million figure.
Updated to add details about $300 million in additional funding from Uber.
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