A startup based in London has been training a computer to drive cars. That computer is Wayve, and it has raised $1.2 billion in a fresh funding round, bumping its valuation to $8.6 billion.
Participants in the round were a list of investors that includes Microsoft, NVIDIA, plus automakers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Stellantis. But an additional $300 million from Uber that is contingent on if the company meets operational targets could bring the total funding to $1.5 billion.
"We are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves. Autonomy will not scale through city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone. It will scale through a trusted platform that automakers and fleets can deploy globally and improve continuously,” founder and CEO Alex Kendall said.
Wayve’s software is built as an end-to-end neural network. It learns from data rather than relying on high-definition maps or tightly defined sensor stacks. The company says its test vehicles have operated in hundreds of cities without city-specific retraining.
That flexibility is at the centre of the business model. If the software can adapt to different cameras, chips, and vehicle designs, it can be licensed widely. Nissan plans to integrate it into its ProPilot system starting in 2027. Uber is preparing to deploy Wayve-powered vehicles in more than 10 markets, beginning in London. The additional $300 million from Uber is tied to those robotaxi rollouts.
“Wayve’s powerful end-to-end approach is purpose-built for scale, safety, and effectiveness, and we’re excited to work with them across multiple OEMs and geographies, which we’ll share more about soon,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement Tuesday.
Historically, the broader autonomous driving industry has been split along two strategy lines. Some players build vertically integrated systems and operate fleets themselves. Others, like Wayve, aim to be the software layer across many brands. Kendall argues owning fleets is capital-intensive and limits scale. A licensing model, he says, opens a larger market, provided the technology generalizes well.
NVIDIA’s Drive platform powers Wayve’s latest system, and the company’s backers are betting the approach can handle both “eyes-on” assisted driving and eventually “eyes-off” automation in defined environments.
This move underscores how London is quickly becoming a testing ground for autonomous vehicles. Waymo is preparing its own entry into the city, and Chinese tech giant Baidu is expanding abroad.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
