"Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which now values Waymo at $126 billion, the company said in a blog post Monday. Parent company Alphabet supported the round and maintained its position as majority investor. The round also included significant investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Mubadala Capital, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price."
"For years, the former Google self-driving project slowly progressed forward, testing its autonomous vehicle tech on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and providing the occasional public or media demo. In 2016, it made its first geographic leap forward and began testing in Phoenix, where it eventually pulled its human safety driver out of the vehicles. Phoenix became Waymo's first robotaxi market, in which the public could hail driverless Chrysler Pacific minivans."
Waymo raised $16 billion in new funding at a $126 billion valuation to scale its driverless robotaxi business and expand internationally to more than a dozen new cities, including London and Tokyo. The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital, with Alphabet remaining the majority investor. Other participants included Andreessen Horowitz, Mubadala Capital, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and Temasek. The company plans to use the capital to grow its fleet and operations after expanding services across Northern California, Los Angeles, Austin, Miami and airport routes from San Francisco International Airport. Waymo began as a Google self-driving project and launched its first commercial robotaxi market in Phoenix.
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