London-based Wave, which makes artificial intelligence systems for self-driving cars, announced Tuesday that it has raised $1 billion. This is an eye-popping sum for a European startup and signals investor optimism about AI's ability to reshape industries.
SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate that backs Uber and other technology companies, is a lead investor along with Microsoft and Nvidia. Previous investors in Wayve include Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta;
Wayve has raised approximately $300 million so far, but has not disclosed its valuation after the investment.
Wayve was co-founded in 2017 by Alex Kendall, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge specializing in computer vision and robotics. Unlike the generative AI models developed by OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic that create human-like text and images, the so-called embodied AI systems created by Waveve are designed to create human-like objects such as cars, robots, and manufacturing systems. functions as the brain of AI allows machines to make real-time decisions on their own.
“AI's full potential is realized when trusted machines exist in the physical world,” Kendall says.
Companies focused on self-driving cars are facing difficult times. The technology is expensive, difficult to build, and subject to intense regulatory scrutiny. General Motors' self-driving subsidiary Cruise removed its self-driving cars from the roads last year due to safety and legal concerns. Apple recently abandoned its self-driving car efforts after years of development.
Wayve, which employs around 300 people, has been testing its technology on UK roads since 2018 and plans to expand to other regions soon. This software leverages cameras, sensors, and other modern automotive technology to see and react to different driving environments. Data collected as the car moves through towns and cities is fed back into the AI system to help the car learn.
This approach differs from other self-driving car developers like Waymo, part of Google's parent company Alphabet. Wayve said its technology relies less on high-definition maps and LIDAR sensors, which are laser tools used to measure distance and detect objects. Tesla has taken a similar approach to Wave in recent years.
Wayve has been building software that explains in plain English why a car made certain driving decisions, such as why it suddenly stopped or slowed down, as a layer of transparency to help persuade regulators. .
The amount raised by Wayve is one of the largest recent startup investments in Europe, which has historically lagged behind the United States in venture capital and high-tech funding. In December, French AI developer Mistral raised 385 million euros (approximately $415 million).
“We are extremely proud that the UK is home to pioneers like Wave who are breaking the ground in developing the next generation of AI models for self-driving cars,” British Chancellor Rishi Sunak said in a statement. .
Mr Kendall, from New Zealand, said the investment from SoftBank and others would allow the company to turn its research into a full commercial product. He said Wave is in talks with several major automakers to put its software in cars that can be purchased, but declined to name the companies.