Wayve: Now AI Can Power 'Every Vehicle That Moves

British autonomous driving firm Wayve closes US$1.2bn funding led by Softbank, with support from Microsoft and NVIDIA to scale its AI driver platform

UK-based autonomous driving company Wayve has successfully closed a US$1.2bn Series D funding round, reaching a post-money valuation of US$8.6bn. This significant capital injection was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Notable participation came from technology giants Microsoft and NVIDIA, along with Uber and major automotive manufacturers including Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Stellantis. The company plans to use the funds to finance the commercial rollout of

Wayve's AI Driver platform globally across consumer vehicles and ride-hailing fleets. This follows a US$1.05bn Series C round in 2024, which was then Europe's biggest ever AI investment.

Global expansion of embodied ai systems

The funding aims to move the company from research to scaled commercial operations. Alex Kendall, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayve, says: “With US$1.5bn secured, we are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves.

"This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.”

Unlike traditional rule-based systems that depend on high-definition maps, Wayve’s AI Driver is a foundation model trained on diverse driving data from over 70 countries. The technology operates using onboard compute and embedded sensors, requiring no location-specific engineering.

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