Balderton 
- Portfolio News
- 06 May, 2026
Wayve, the leader in embodied AI for autonomous driving, today announced it has raised $1.2 billion in a Series D investment round, bringing its post-money valuation to $8.6 billion. Uber will invest additional milestone-based capital to scale Wayve-powered robotaxi deployments globally, within the broader $1.5 billion of capital secured to support commercial rollout. The funding accelerates the company’s shift from AI research leadership to scaled commercial deployment of its end-to-end AI platform.
The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and brings in new investment from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures, Schroders Capital and other global institutional investors. Balderton first invested in Wayve at Series A in 2019.
Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber participated in the round, reflecting support for Wayve’s embodied AI as a foundational software layer for deploying autonomy at a global scale. Leading global automotive manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis also invested, in support of advancing Wayve’s unified AI platform spanning L2+ “hands off” through L3/L4 “eyes off” driving across vehicles, brands and markets.
We’ve been proud to support Wayve since the early days, backing Alex and his team as they pursued an ambitious – and at the time rather contrarian – vision for embodied AI. The technical achievements are extraordinary, but what’s more impressive is how this team has taken cutting-edge research out of the lab and deployed it in complex, real-world driving environments – turning breakthrough science into commercial reality.
Born out of a tiny lab in Cambridge and now a global leader in its field, Wayve represents the very best of European innovation: world-class technology, global ambition and real-world deployment at scale.
Suranga Chandratilllake General Partner, Balderton
From research to commercial deployment
Wayve pioneered the application of end-to-end AI to autonomous driving in 2017 and has since industrialised its safety-by-design architecture into a production-ready autonomy platform.
From 2026, consumers will experience Wayve-powered robotaxis through commercial trials with Uber. From 2027, they will be able to buy passenger vehicles equipped with Wayve’s AI Driver, starting with L2+ “hands-off” capability that allows the vehicle to steer, navigate and respond to traffic under driver supervision.
Wayve licenses its AI Driver directly to automakers, providing tools to customize driving models for specific vehicles and brands. The system runs entirely on onboard vehicle compute and embedded sensors, and doesn’t rely on high-definition maps or location-specific engineering. By partnering with automakers and mobility platforms rather than vertically integrating, Wayve enables autonomy to scale globally with lower capital intensity.
In the past year, Wayve became the first and only AV developer to drive zero-shot in more than 500 cities across Europe, North America and Japan, meaning without city-specific fine-tuning before deployment. That performance is enabled by Wayve’s foundation model trained on globally diverse data spanning over 70 countries and a wide range of vehicle platforms, creating unmatched data diversity that allows autonomy to generalize to new markets.
With $1.5 billion secured, we are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves. Autonomy will not scale through city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone. It will scale through a trusted platform that automakers and f leets can deploy globally and improve continuously. This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.”
Alex Kendall CEO and founder, Wayve
Robotaxi deployment with Uber
Uber participated in the Series D and has committed additional capital to support multi-year deployments of Wayve-powered robotaxis on the Uber network, with plans to scale to more than 10 markets globally. The companies plan to launch their first service in London in 2026, with broader international rollout to follow.
Under the partnership, Wayve will deploy its AI Driver in L4-capable vehicles from participating automakers, while Uber will own and operate the fleet, creating a scalable model for autonomous ride-hailing using mass-produced vehicles.
Autonomy for any vehicle, anywhere
End-to-end AI has shifted from a research bet to the industry’s chosen path for scalable autonomy. Wayve has spent nearly a decade pioneering this technology into a production-grade platform that can power any vehicle, anywhere. As the industry converges on end-to-end AI, Wayve is positioned to lead its global deployment.
