The self-driving automotive firm Waymo on Monday stated it raised $16bn in a funding spherical that valued the Alphabet subsidiary at $126bn.
Waymo’s co-chief executives, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, touted the huge funding as an indication that the age of large-scale autonomous mobility has arrived.
“This infusion of capital will guarantee we’re positioned to maneuver ahead with unprecedented velocity, whereas sustaining our industry-leading security requirements,” Dolgov and Mawakana stated in a blogpost.
Waymo’s focus is on spreading its robotaxi service all through the USA and internationally this yr, the executives added. Its service, out there in 10 US cities as of early 2026, goals to increase to about 20 metropolitan areas inside a yr, together with London.
Waymo’s white Jaguars, geared up with cameras and sensors, have change into a well-known sight on San Francisco and Los Angeles streets.
“We’re not proving an idea; we’re scaling a industrial actuality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 extra cities in 2026, together with Tokyo and London,” Dolgov and Mawakana stated.
Final yr, the corporate greater than tripled its annual quantity to 15m rides and now offers greater than 400,000 rides weekly within the six main US metropolitan areas the place it operates, in response to the corporate.
“We’ve got demonstrated that our expertise is not only essentially the most superior manifestation of AI within the bodily world, however an important service that folks have come to depend on of their day by day lives,” the co-chief executives stated.
Alphabet took an enormous half within the latest funding spherical led by Dragoneer Funding Group, joined by Silicon Valley enterprise capital titans like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, in response to Waymo.
Letting go of the steering wheel is not a fantasy as Waymo’s robotaxis in the USA and China’s Apollo Go – which has been rising quickly over the previous yr – display the reliability of absolutely autonomous driving, the place duty lies with the machine and never the human.
Rivals reminiscent of Uber are quick rising. The ride-sharing big final month unveiled a Lucid robotaxi, aiming to place a fleet of them to work in San Francisco later this yr.
