Alphabet-owned self-driving car company Waymo has raised $16 billion this year with plans to expand its self-driving taxis to more than a dozen 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 retained its position as a majority shareholder.
The round also included significant investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Mubadala Capital, 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 fuel growth, which has accelerated over the past year and does not appear to be slowing. The company recently acquired a fleet of vehicles to and from San Francisco International Airport and has expanded its robotaxi service to Northern California and several major metropolitan areas in the United States, including Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami.
For several years, the former Google self-driving project slowly evolved, testing autonomous vehicle technology on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and providing occasional public or media demonstrations. In 2016, it made its first geographic leap and began testing in Phoenix, eventually pulling a human safety driver out of the vehicle. Phoenix becomes Waymo’s first robotaxi market where the public can welcome the driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivan.
Waymo discontinued the accelerator in August 2023 after receiving the final permits needed to operate a robotaxi service in California and charge for rides. It began with limited service in San Francisco and later expanded into the greater Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and, most recently, highways connecting dozens of cities in the region. It also expanded to Los Angeles. The company plans to launch in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. We started the year by expanding into Miami.
Geographic expansion brings 400,000 rides per week across six major metropolitan areas in the United States. The company said that in 2025 alone, the number of annual trips will more than triple to 15 million, surpassing 20 million in its lifetime to date.
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“We are no longer providing proof of concept,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We are expanding our commercial reality, laying the foundation for ride-hailing operations in more than 20 additional cities, including Tokyo and London, in 2026.”
The rapid expansion has led to increased scrutiny and criticism as Waymo’s robotaxi has made mistakes and the technology has caused problems for some residents.
Some robotaxis have exhibited dangerous behavior, especially in school zones. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have launched an investigation into the illegal actions of Waymo robotaxi around school buses. NHTSA also launched another investigation last week after a Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a school. The child, who suffered minor injuries, was hit at about 6 miles per hour.
