Google’s driverless car sister company Waymo has closed its latest investment round, raising $5.6 billion (£4.3 billion), led by its parent company Alphabet, with continued participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price.
It says that, with this latest investment, it will continue to welcome more riders into its Waymo One ride-hailing service in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and in Austin and Atlanta through an expanded partnership with Uber. It’ll also continue advancing the Waymo Driver — an AI-powered autonomous driving system — to support a variety of business applications over time.
“Customers love Waymo. The company has built the safest product in the autonomous vehicle ecosystem as well as the best,” said Chase Coleman, Founder of Tiger Global. “Their proven experience fostering rider loyalty, securing key partnerships, and collaborating with automotive industry leaders demonstrates their ability to balance ambitious goals with responsible execution, positioning them as the enduring leader in the space.”
“While AI is only just beginning to capture the public imagination, Waymo has been working to bring its endless possibilities to the world of physical transportation for years,” said Egon Durban, Co-CEO, Silver Lake. “The Waymo Driver leads in earning trust by safely actualizing the value and potential of AI through cutting-edge research, practical solutions, and a vastly expanding scope and scale of real world experience.”
The company says this year has marked “incredible commercial progress towards our mission to be the world’s most trusted driver.” It points out it’s expanded the Waymo One service areas in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, including providing curbside service at Sky Harbor International Airport. It adds: “Through our expanded partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta, we’ll begin to serve riders in those cities in 2025. To create an even more useful experience, we’ve begun fully autonomous freeway operations in Phoenix and San Francisco. These efforts have enabled us to provide over 100,000 paid weekly trips—a tenfold increase from last year.”
(Picture – Waymo)
