By Kirsten Korosec
Publication Date: 2026-02-25 00:37:00
Wayve’s self-driving tech has attracted a diverse set of investors in the company’s latest $1.2 billion funding round, including three automakers, top venture and institutional firms, and returning backers Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber. The total raise could reach $1.5 billion thanks to another $300 million from Uber contingent on deploying robotaxis, beginning in London.
Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the U.K. startup, which is now valued at $8.6 billion. The funding round illustrates the eagerness among Big Tech, legacy automakers, and the investor community to profit from the burgeoning automated driving industry.
Wayve provides what founder and CEO Alex Kendall calls the “contrarian” option in automated driving — contrarian both in its approach to tech and its business model, he told TechCrunch in an interview Tuesday.
“I think the technology chessboard is set around where different companies have invested on the technology strategy, and now the commercial chessboard is being arranged,” Kendall said. “We took a very contrarian view on the technology side. We were the first to build end-to-end deep learning for autonomous driving, and we pioneered this approach. Now, when it comes to this phase of moving into commercialization, we’re also taking a contrarian business model approach.”
Wayve, which launched in 2017, uses a self-learning approach to its software. The company developed a software layer using an end-to-end neural…