Startup Wayve raises $1.05 billion in funding round

The latest funding brings Wayve’s total funds raised to just more than $1.3 billion and marks the biggest investment yet in a British startup focused on AI technology

British self-driving technology startup Wayve said on Tuesday it has raised $1.05 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank Group to accelerate the development and launch in production-model vehicles of its Embodied AI technology that can learn from and adapt to human behaviour.

Nvidia also contributed in the Series C funding round as a new investor, as did existing investor Microsoft.

The latest funding brings Wayve’s total funds raised to just more than $1.3 billion and marks the biggest investment yet in a British startup focused on AI technology.

In a statement, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed the funding round as “a testament to our leadership in this industry, and that our plan for the (UK) economy is working”.

Founded in 2017, Wayve’s autonomous driving technology uses artificial intelligence that the startup says will enable vehicles to “navigate situations that do not follow strict patterns or rules, such as unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians, or environmental elements”.

This will enable automakers and fleets to accelerate their transition from assisted to autonomous driving, according to Wayve CEO Alex Kendall.

The startup’s technology is currently integrated into six different vehicle platforms including electric vehicles like the Jaguar I-Pace and Ford Mustang MachE as part of advanced driver assistance systems (Adas), he added. As self-driving technology advances, Wayve’s AI will be upgraded using over-the-air software updates.

The problem faced by robotaxi startups and other self-driving firms is that developing vehicles that can truly drive themselves has proven more difficult than originally imagined.

Among the main challenges is that self-driving software systems have simply lacked humans’ ability to predict and evaluate risk swiftly, particularly when encountering unexpected incidents or “edge cases”.

As the scale of that challenge has become clear, major investments in autonomous startups like Wayve are increasingly rare.