Autonomous vehicle startup Waabi has raised $1 billion and formed a partnership with Uber to deploy self-driving cars on its ride-hailing platform — the company’s first expansion beyond autonomous trucks.
The funding includes an oversubscribed $750 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners and approximately $250 million in milestone-based capital from Uber to support the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered custom robotaxis on the platform. The company did not provide a timeline for the large-scale deployment.
The partnership represents a bet that AI technology startups can succeed where others have struggled – expanding across multiple driving verticals with a single technology stack. While competitors like Waymo previously experimented with robotaxis and trucks before shutting down their cargo programs, Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun said the company’s capital-efficient approach and generalizable AI architecture give it a unique advantage to tackle the market together.
“Our incredible core technology really allows, for the first time, a single solution that can do multiple verticals, and it can be done at scale,” Urtasun told TechCrunch. “It’s not about two programs, two stacks.”
The bond makes Urtasun’s work complete: he previously served as chief scientist at Uber’s autonomous vehicle division, Uber ATG, which Uber sold to self-driving truck company Aurora Innovation in 2020. Also built in Waabi’s partnership with Uber Freight.
Waabi is one of the AV companies Uber has brought on board to deploy self-driving vehicles on its platform globally. Other companies included WaymoOnly, Avridemoment, WeRide, The momentand others.
The round of ties and funding came as Uber launched a new division called Uber AV Labs which will use the vehicle to collect data for AV partners.
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Waabi does not rely on data like some, if Urtasun is to be trusted. Waabi drivers are trained, tested, and validated using a so-called closed-loop simulator The word water that automatically builds the world’s digital twin from data; perform real-time sensor simulations; create a scenario to stress-test Driver Waabi; and teaches Drivers to learn from their mistakes without human intervention. The result? Waabi drivers can reason about their surroundings like humans and choose the best maneuvers, Urtasun said. This allows the system to generalize and learn from fewer examples than traditional autonomous driving systems.
Waabi has spent the last four-and-a-half years developing the technology for off-road and surface truck capabilities, but Urtasun says the Waabi Brain is common to a variety of vehicle form factors — he even hinted at the company’s next vertical robotics. From the beginning, the company collected and simulated passenger car data along with truck work, a signal that robotaxis was always part of the long-term plan.
That approach allows Waabi to build faster and cheaper than competitors, Urtasun said.
“We don’t need a gazillion humans to develop the technology and the huge fleet that AV 1.0 will require,” Urtasun said. “We don’t need huge data centers, energy consumption, or millions of the latest chips.”
The deal brings Waabi’s total funds raised to approximately $1.28 billion since then closed a $200 million Series B in June 2024. Competitors Aurora Innovation and Kodiak Robotics have raised $3.46 billion and $448 million to date, through a combination of venture capital and public market proceeds.
In just five years, Waabi has launched several commercial pilots (with a human driver in the front seat) in Texas. The company had planned to launch its driverless truck on public roads at the end of last year, but the rollout has been delayed until the next few quarters, according to Urtasun.
Waabi is working with Volvo to build a purpose-built autonomous truck, which the company said revealed last October at TechCrunch Disrupt. Urtasun said the Waabi Driver is ready, but the truck still needs to be validated before it can be launched.
But Urtasun is not worried. He said there is a lot of demand for Waabi trucks because of the company’s direct-to-consumer model that allows shippers to buy fully equipped trucks directly, and he believes that with the Uber partnership, Waabi will be able to “quickly penetrate the market and scale with a very reliable product.”
“We are still in the first round of robotaxis deployment,” he said. “There’s more scale to come.”
Urtasun would not share more specifics about Uber’s launch, like the automakers Waabi will work with. He said Waabi will take the same route as autonomous truck launches by building sensors and technology into vehicles from the factory floor.
“We believe in vertical integration with redundant platforms from OEM,” she said. “That’s how you build secure, scalable technology.”
Other investors in Waabi’s Series C include Uber, NVentures (Nvidia’s VC arm), Volvo Group Venture Capital, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, BlackRock, BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, and others.