Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company, has raised $16 billion as it plans to expand its fleet of driverless taxis this year to more than ten new cities around the world, including London and Tokyo.
Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which now values Waymo at $126 billion, the company said in a blog post Monday. Parent company Alphabet supported the round and maintained its position as majority investor.
The round also included significant investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Mubadala Capital, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. Additional investors include BDT & MSD Partners, CapitalG, Fidelity Management & Research Company, GV, Kleiner Perkins, Perry Creek Capital, and Temasek.
Waymo said the funds will be used to accelerate its growth, which has accelerated over the past year and shows no sign of slowing. Company safe ride to and from San Francisco International Airport and has expanded its robotaxi service throughout Northern California and several major US metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami.
For years, Google’s former self-driving project has been slowly moving forward, testing its autonomous vehicle technology on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and providing public or media demonstrations. In 2016, he made his first geographic leap and began experimenting in Phoenix, which eventually caught his attention. human safety driver get out of the vehicle. Phoenix is Waymo’s first robotaxi market, where the public can hail a driverless Chrysler Pacific minivan.
Waymo is pushing the accelerator in August 2023 after receiving the final permits needed to operate its robotaxi service — and charge for rides — in California. It launched limited service in San Francisco, then expanded to much of the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and more recently to highways connecting dozens of cities in the region. It also expanded to Los Angeles. The company is launching in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. It kicked off the year by expanding to Miami.
Geographic expansion has translated into 400,000 rides provided each week in six major US metropolitan areas. The company says by 2025, it will more than triple its annual volume to 15 million rides, surpassing the 20 million lifetime rides it has done so far.
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“We are no longer proof of concept,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We are expanding our commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in more than 20 additional cities by 2026, including Tokyo and London.”
The rapid expansion has also led to scrutiny and criticism that Waymo’s robotaxis has made missteps and technology. create problems for some residents.
Some robotaxis have shown dangerous behavior especially in school zones. The National Highway Traffic Administration’s Office of Defect Investigation as well as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have an investigation was opened to the illegal behavior of Waymo robotaxis around school buses. NHTSA also launched another investigation last week after Waymo’s robotaxi hit the child near the school. The boy, who suffered minor injuries, was hit at about 6 mph.