Waymo says it has closed a $5.6 billion investment round that will help develop its still-young robotaxi service.
The “oversubscribed” round was unsurprisingly led by parent company Alphabet, but also included ongoing support from major backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price.
Waymo wasn’t specific about what it would do with the investment, but promised to expand its Waymo One ridership in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, as well as its new Uber partnerships in Atlanta and Austin. You can also expect continued work on the Waymo Driver autonomous driving platform as it’s adapted to a “variety” of business uses.
It’s not shocking that Waymo would continue to get support. Alphabet has long seen Waymo as a showcase for its long-term technology ambitions, and that’s even more true as the company focuses heavily on large language AI models like Gemini.
Waymo is also closer to being a fully viable business. It now says it has 100,000 paid weekly trips, or ten times as many as it had last year. That’s tiny compared to the roughly 28 million daily trips Uber had worldwide in 2023, but it’s clear that driverless taxis are more than just an experiment.
The motivations for other Waymo investment partners aren’t as clear, although the larger customer base certainly helps. This might be a safer bet for some than GM’s Cruise, which is gradually returning to the road following a 2023 pedestrian collision but has shelved its Origin taxi and has yet to see the full effect of former Xbox executive Marc Whitten’s new role as CEO. Simply speaking, Waymo is the US robotaxi operator with the most secure future.