Self-Driving Taxi Company Waymo Nets $5.6B

Self-driving taxi company Waymo has completed an oversubscribed funding round of $5.6 billion.

The round is the firm’s largest to date, and will be used to expand its operations in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, as well as establish itself in Austin and Atlanta, via its recently announced partnership with Uber.

Waymo says it will also continue to develop its autonomous driving system – the Waymo Driver – to support a variety of business applications.

The series C funding round was led by owner Alphabet, parent company of Google, and also featured further backing from previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.

It means Waymo has now raised more than $11 billion, after attracting $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in previous rounds. 

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The timing of the funding is significant, with Tesla’s mooted arrival on the self-driving taxi scene attracting plenty of attention to the sector.

Chase Coleman, founder of Tiger Global, explained why his company remains committed to Waymo. He said: “[It] has built the safest product in the autonomous vehicle ecosystem as well as the best.

“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.”

Related:Self-Driving Taxis Gain Trust Among Users

This sentiment was echoed by Egon Durban, CEO of Silver Lake, who added: “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.”

While Tesla is still talking about its robotaxi plans, and General Motors’ Cruise has encountered a difficult year in the aftermath of the now infamous incident which saw a pedestrian badly injured in San Francisco, Waymo has made steady progress.

It now claims to provide more than 100,000 paid weekly trips across San Francisco, Phoenix and LA, which represents a tenfold increase from a year ago.

It has also launched a curbside service at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – the first of its type in the United States.

The sixth generation of its Waymo Driver tech was unveiled in August, promising major advances in range, computing power and efficiency.

And it also recently announced a deal with South Korea’s Hyundai to integrate the automaker’s IONIQ 5 EVs onto its fleet from 2026.

Related:Tesla Unveils Sub-$30k Self-Driving Taxi Set for 2026 Launch

In a statement to announce the new funding, co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov acknowledged: “This year has marked incredible commercial progress towards our mission to be the world’s most trusted driver.”