Wayve, a London-based start-up developing artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems for self-driving vehicles has managed to raise an impressive $1 billion in funding from big names such as SoftBank, Nvidia, Microsoft and others.
The funding round was led by Japanese investment company Softbank who have previously backed Uber and own holdings in other successful tech companies, including Nvidia itself.
The semi-conductor company with big contributions to autonomous driving tech, Nvidia recently hit headlines when their shares soared after reporting $22.1 billion in revenue in their latest quarterly report.
The weighty figure of $1 billion in funding seems to demonstrate investor optimism in AI-based solutions to the progression of the self-driving market.
Dominik Wee, Corporate Vice President of Manufacturing and Mobility at Microsoft, said:
“By utilising Microsoft’s supercomputing capabilities and cloud computing technology, copilot-enabled developer platform, enterprise data management applications, and leading AI model commercialisation expertise, Wayve can deliver and scale innovative Embodied AI solutions that enable safer and more accessible autonomous driving experiences.”
Wayve was co-founded in 2017 by Alex Kendall, a Cambridge University doctorate student who developed the company’s autonomous system named Embodied AI.
The system integrates advanced A.I. into vehicles and robots to transform how machines interact with, comprehend, and learn from human behaviour in real-world environments.
Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said:
“This investment will enable us to develop and launch our first Embodied AI products for the automotive industry, empowering OEMs to provide consumers with trustworthy and beneficial automated driving experiences.”
