Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving subsidiary, is close to finalizing or has finalized a $16 billion funding round that values the company at $110 billion, more than doubling its valuation from the previous round.
Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is providing about $13 billion of the $16 billion.
New investors: Sequoia Capital, DST Global (led by Yuri Milner), and Dragoneer Investment Group.
Existing investors adding more: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala.
Waymo’s annual recurring revenue has surpassed $350 million but it is still losing (spending) about $2-4 billion per year.
The company has completed over 20 million rider-only trips and logged more than 125 million fully autonomous miles on U.S. roads with minimal safety incidents.
It operates fully driverless ride-hailing services (Level 4 autonomy) in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami, expecting to reach 1 million rides per week this year.
Expansion Plans are rollout to additional U.S. cities (including New York), partnerships with Uber in markets like Austin and Atlanta, and international testing in London and Tokyo. Waymo is also diversifying its fleet from Jaguar I-Pace SUVs to cost-efficient Hyundai Ioniq 5 models and larger vans from China’s Zeekr
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
