UK Self-Driving Startup Wayve Raises Over $1 Billion Led by SoftBank

UK self-driving startup Wayve has successfully closed its $1.05 billion in Series C funding. This round was led by SoftBank Group, with contributions from new investor NVIDIA and existing investor Microsoft.

This investment will accelerate Wayve’s mission to 'reimagine autonomous mobility through embodied intelligence'.

Embodied AI allows machines to interact with and learn from human behaviour in real-world environments.

This innovation has the potential to enhance the usability and safety of autonomous driving systems, empowering them with the intelligence to navigate situations that do not follow strict patterns or rules, such as unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians, or environmental elements.

Founded in 2017, Wayve was the first company to develop and test an end-to-end (e2e) AI autonomous driving system on public roads.

Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, says: “At Wayve, our vision is to develop autonomous technology that not only becomes a reality in millions of vehicles but also earns people’s trust by seamlessly integrating into their everyday lives to unlock extraordinary value. This significant funding milestone highlights our team’s unwavering conviction that Embodied AI will address the long-standing challenges the industry has faced in scaling this technology to everyone, everywhere."

Kentaro Matsui, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, Head of the New Business Office at SoftBank Group and Board Member at Wayve, adds: “AI is revolutionizing mobility. Vehicles can now interpret their surroundings like humans, enabling enhanced decision-making that promises higher safety standards. The potential of this type of technology is transformative; it could eliminate 99% of traffic accidents. SoftBank Group is delighted to be at the forefront of this effort with Wayve, as advanced intelligence redefines mobility and connectivity, contributing to a more convenient and safer society.”

Rishi Dhall, Vice President of Automotive Business at NVIDIA, comments: “Wayve is pioneering new AI applications for their next-generation AV2.0 approach, built on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and DRIVE Thor, which uses the new NVIDIA Blackwell architecture designed for transformer, LLM, and Generative AI workloads. Together, we can help enable self-driving vehicles that deliver the intelligence, dependability, and skill of the best human drivers.”

Wayve's advanced AI software and foundation models for autonomy enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any environment.