UK-based autonomous driving startup Wayve has secured $1.2bn in Series D funding at post-money valuation of $8.6bn.
Including further “milestone-based capital” commitments from Uber, Wayve said the total funds raised in this round would be $1.5bn.
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The round was led by venture firms Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Existing backers Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber also participated, along with automotive partners Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis.
Additional investors include Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures and Schroders Capital.
Wayve said the funding will support its shift from research-focused development towards scaled commercial rollout of its autonomous driving technology with global automotive and mobility partners.
Uber and Wayve aim to introduce their first commercial robotaxi offering in London in 2026, followed by expansion into more than ten markets.
Under the partnership, Wayve will provide its AI Driver software for Level 4-capable vehicles supplied by automaker partners, while Uber will manage fleet ownership and operations.
Wayve said it plans to begin rolling out supervised autonomy software in consumer vehicles from 2027, initially delivering Level 2+ “hands-off” functionality.
The company licenses its AI Driver directly to manufacturers, enabling vehicle-specific adaptation without dependence on high-definition maps or location-specific engineering, and designed to operate using onboard compute and sensors.
Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall said: “With $1.5bn secured, we are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves. Autonomy will not scale through city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone.
“This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.”
According to the company, its system has run “zero-shot” – without city-specific fine-tuning – across more than 500 cities in Europe, North America and Japan over the past year.
This deployment has been supported by training data collected across over 70 countries and multiple vehicle platforms.
