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Wayve CEO Alex Kendall Raises $1.5B to Steer Europe’s Robotaxi Dreams

After years of A.I. research, Alex Kendall is shifting Wayve into commercial mode with a $1.5 billion war chest.

Alex Kendall, the 33-year-old founder and CEO of Wayve, grew up on New Zealand’s South Island and came up with the name of his autonomous driving startup, Wayve, after surfing Auckland’s beaches. Now his attention is on the busy streets of London, where Wayve plans to deploy self-driving cars later this year after securing $1.5 billion in a Series C funding round that values the startup at $8.6 billion, the company announced yesterday (Feb. 25)

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Wayve’s backers include tech heavyweights Nvidia, Uber and Microsoft. In 2018, a year after founding the company, Kendall followed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang into an elevator at a Utah conference to pitch his idea. Huang was intrigued and later became an investor. Nvidia participated in the latest round, which was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank.

Wayve is seen as Europe’s best bet for a stake in autonomous driving. Like U.S. self-driving leader Waymo, Wayve doesn’t manufacture vehicles but focuses on developing autonomous software that can be licensed to carmakers. Using cameras and sensors, Wayve-powered vehicles learn to make driving decisions through experience and visual interpretation, instead of relying on maps or location-specific data. The approach is similar to Tesla’s FSD software. 

Kendall co-founded the company shortly after earning a Ph.D. in deep learning for computer vision and robotics at Cambridge University. His academic work drew the attention of industry leaders, including Yann LeCun, who first invested in Wayve in 2022 after reading one of Kendall’s papers. Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Richard Branson have also thrown their support behind Kendall after riding in vehicles equipped with Wayve’s technology. Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, was reportedly so comfortable during a Wayve test ride in Japan that he fell asleep in the back seat.

With the new funding, Wayve says it is ready to move beyond A.I. research leadership and scale its robotaxi ambitions. “This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle, anywhere,” said Kendall in a statement.

Of the $1.5 billion, up to $300 million consists of milestone-based deployments from Uber tied to a new partnership that will bring Wayve-powered robotaxis to Uber. The companies plan to enter 10 global markets over time, starting with an initial London launch later this year. Uber struck a similar agreement last month when it invested in Waabi, a Toronto-based AV startup.

Wayve has also expanded its automotive partnerships. A 2025 deal with Nissan will integrate the startup’s technology into the automaker’s driver-assistance systems, with vehicle rollouts beginning in 2027. Over the past year, Wayve has tested its software across more than 500 cities using a fleet of Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles.

The fundraise is the latest sign of momentum in Europe’s A.I. sector. While total startup funding in the region reached $58 billion in 2025, compared with $280 billion in North America, it marked a 9 percent year-over-year increase and the first time A.I. became Europe’s leading funding sector, according to Crunchbase.

Other well-funded European A.I. companies include Mistral AI, which reached a $14 billion valuation last year. Germany-based Black Forest Labs and Helsing have also emerged as major contenders, raising roughly $300 million and $690 million, respectively, in 2025 at valuations of $3.25 billion and $13.8 billion.

SEE ALSO: A.I. Is Overhyped Yet Underappreciated, Says DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis

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