UK AI company Wayve has announced the successful closure of a US$1.05bn Series C funding round – led by SoftBank Group, with contributions from new investor Nvidia and existing investor Microsoft – to accelerate its mission to advance autonomous mobility through embodied intelligence.
Embodied AI, which integrates advanced AI into vehicles and robots, aims to change how machines interact with, comprehend and learn from human behavior in real-world environments.
The investment will support Wayve in fully developing and launching the first embodied AI solutions for production vehicles. These solutions will be designed to enable original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to upgrade cars to higher levels of driving automation, from L2+ assisted driving to L4 automated driving.
Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said, “Our collaboration with SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft will help advance our mission to redefine driving with AI at the core. 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.”
The Series C investment will also enable Wayve to scale its foundation models, advance embodied AI research, and build an AV2.0 Platform with reliable simulation, measurement and active learning tools for automotive applications. The funds will also support the expansion of operations and partnerships in new markets, building geographically diverse data assets and attracting global talent.
Rishi Dhall, VP of automotive business at Nvidia, said, “Wayve is pioneering new AI applications for their next-generation AV2.0 approach, built on Nvidia Drive Orin and Drive Thor which uses the new Nvidia Blackwell architecture designed for transformer, LLM and generative AI workloads. Together, we can help enable self-driving vehicles that deliver the intelligence, dependability and skill of the best human drivers.”
Dominik Wee, corporate VP of manufacturing and mobility at Microsoft, said, “By utilizing Microsoft’s supercomputing capabilities and cloud computing technology, copilot-enabled developer platform, enterprise data management applications and leading AI model commercialization expertise, Wayve can deliver and scale innovative embodied AI solutions that enable safer and more accessible autonomous driving experiences.”
Kentaro Matsui, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers and head of the new business office at SoftBank Group and board member at Wayve, said, “AI is revolutionizing mobility.The potential of this type of technology is transformative; it could eliminate 99% of traffic accidents. SoftBank Group is delighted to be at the forefront of this effort with Wayve, as advanced intelligence redefines mobility and connectivity, contributing to a more convenient and safer society.”
As part of the final transaction, SoftBank has joined Wayve’s board of directors.
Interested in Wayve? Don’t miss an exclusive presentation from Wayve’s director of public policy, Sarah Gates, at this year’s ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Europe conference. Sarah is part of a panel discussion, titled ‘Safe AI for Automated Driving: Reality or Fiction?’, which will discuss if (and how) AI development for automated driving needs to be regulated and standardised; and reveal key strategies for tackling bias and completeness for training and testing datasets for AI development for automated driving, among other issues.