Waabi, the Toronto-based AI firm constructing software program to allow autonomous driving, has raised $1 billion in new funding and struck a serious partnership with Uber to deploy at the very least 25,000 robotaxis on the ride-hailing large’s platform.
The deal marks a big enlargement for Waabi, which till now has targeted on autonomous trucking.
The funding consists of a $750 million Sequence C spherical led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Enterprise Companions, plus a further $250 million milestone-based funding from Uber tied to the robotaxi deployment. The corporate says it’s the largest fundraise in Canadian historical past.
Different buyers within the Sequence C embody Uber, NVentures (Nvidia’s enterprise capital arm), Volvo Group Enterprise Capital, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, BlackRock, Radical Ventures, and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Funding Authority.
Waabi declined to reveal its valuation following the funding spherical. Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail reported in December that the corporate was looking for a $3 billion valuation within the Sequence C spherical.
Waabi additionally declined to say the place its Uber robotaxis would first be deployed or on precisely what timeline they’d be rolled out.
Waabi represents a brand new breed of autonomous automobile firm—a part of what some within the business name “AV 2.0.” These corporations use end-to-end AI fashions that study to drive from huge quantities of information. Usually a single AI mannequin handles notion (understanding the place the automobile is on the highway and what’s occurring round it), navigation (deciding what path to take), and motion (deciding the best way to flip the steering wheel and whether or not to speed up or brake).
This contrasts with earlier self-driving know-how, similar to that initially deployed by Alphabet firm Waymo, which relied on in depth hand-coded guidelines, many alternative software program applications and machine studying fashions, every dealing with a single facet of driving, in addition to high-definition maps.
Uber has lately introduced a slew of robotaxi offers with automobile producers and AV 2.0 startups. In a lot of these offers, Uber is offering the startups with funding, because it’s doing with Waabi. Earlier this month, Uber introduced a tie-up with Nuro, one other startup constructing software program for self-driving, and Lucid Motors, which goals to place 20,000 Uber robotaxis on the roads, with the primary robotaxi deployed this yr.
Alongside that announcement, Uber additionally invested $300 million into Nuro and Lucid. The experience hailing firm additionally has partnerships with self-driving startup Avride for robotaxis in Dallas and several other different U.S. cities. And it has partnered with Waymo to permit passengers to hail Waymo self-driving automobiles by the Uber app in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta. In 2024, Uber invested in U.Okay. AV 2.0 firm Wayve as a part of a partnership that additionally aimed to check Wayve’s know-how in Ubers in London. Uber additionally has a partnership with the Chinese language web large Baidu to check robotaxis in London and several other different worldwide markets.
Raquel Urtasun, the pc scientist who based Waabi in 2021 and serves as its CEO, beforehand led Uber’s autonomous automobile analysis lab. Uber has been concerned with Waabi since its Sequence A enterprise funding spherical and already holds a seat on the startup’s board.
Beforehand, Waabi had been engaged on the software program that would function autonomous vans. In October, it introduced the mixing of its AI software program into Volvo’s fleet of autonomous vans, which offer autonomous freight supply companies on highways in Texas and a few mining and quarrying websites in Norway and Sweden. Volvo Autonomous additionally has a partnership with Uber’s Uber Freight service.
Presently, Volvo’s vans that use Waabi’s software program are utilizing security drivers in Texas. Urtasun mentioned Waabi determined to not launch totally driverless trucking operations till the Volvo platform is totally validated—a call she framed as prioritizing security over pace. Volvo has mentioned publicly that full validation is “simply quarters away.”
Urtasun advised Fortune that the enlargement to robotaxis is under no circumstances a pivot for Waabi. The corporate’s “bodily AI platform” can generalize throughout totally different automobile sorts, geographies, and driving circumstances, and the precise identical AI fashions that drive Waabi’s vans may also energy its robotaxis, she mentioned.
“The mannequin shall be conscious which automobile it’s driving, however will probably be the identical mannequin,” Urtasun mentioned. “Consider us as people—we’re not switching our mind, however we all know every automobile we’re driving.”
This strategy stands in distinction to corporations which have developed separate programs for various automobile sorts. It additionally implies that enhancements made for trucking profit the robotaxi system, and vice versa.
Though Waabi and Uber didn’t disclose a timeline for the Waabi-powered robotaxi rollout, Urtasun mentioned it will occur “tremendous quick.” “A lot quicker than anyone can suppose,” she mentioned. “A lot quicker than you had historically seen on the robotaxi aspect.”
The robotaxi market is turning into intensely aggressive. Waymo, owned by Google mum or dad Alphabet, has been aggressively increasing past its authentic base within the San Francisco Bay Space. The corporate now operates in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, and Atlanta, and has introduced plans to launch in additional than a dozen further U.S. cities in 2026, together with Miami, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, and Washington D.C. It’s additionally planning its first worldwide launches in London and Tokyo.
Tesla, in the meantime, launched a restricted robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, final June utilizing its Full Self-Driving software program. The service initially operated with human security screens within the passenger seat however started providing some totally driverless rides in January. Tesla’s strategy, like Waabi’s, depends on end-to-end AI skilled on digital camera information—although Tesla makes use of a vision-only system with out the lidar sensors most opponents make use of.
Wayve, the British firm that has raised greater than $1.3 billion from buyers together with SoftBank, Microsoft, and Nvidia, can also be pursuing end-to-end AI. However not like Waabi, Wayve has targeted totally on passenger automobiles and superior driver-assistance programs quite than trucking.
Waymo itself has been experimenting with end-to-end AI fashions and is rebuilding its personal self-driving know-how stack round them, as Fortune reported final yr. However the firm continues to depend on a mix of lidar, radar, and cameras for industrial operations.
Waabi’s new funding, in the meantime, will go towards accelerating its industrial progress in trucking whereas additionally supporting the enlargement into robotaxis, Urtasun mentioned.
Vinod Khosla, founding father of Khosla Ventures, mentioned in a press release that Waabi’s know-how is “a basic leap ahead” in how driverless know-how is being developed. “Their exceptional progress in autonomous trucking and fast enlargement into robotaxis demonstrates how their know-how unlocks for the primary time true scale in the true world,” he mentioned.
