Reeves set to back self-driving car firm with tens of millions in taxpayer funding

"The £28bn National Wealth Fund (NWF), backed by the Treasury, is understood to be close to agreeing a major investment in Oxa, the Oxford-founded driverless vehicle start-up previously known as Oxbotica. The business was established in 2014 by Oxford University academic Professor Paul Newman and was the first company to trial autonomous vehicles on UK roads in 2016. Oxa has raised more than £180m from private investors to date and focuses on developing software that can make existing vehicles autonomous, rather than manufacturing cars itself."

"The proposed investment would come via the National Wealth Fund, launched by Labour in 2024 as the successor to the UK Infrastructure Bank. While operationally independent, the fund is designed to support the government's growth and industrial strategy, typically making direct investments of £25m to £50m to crowd in significantly larger sums of private capital. Backing from the fund would mark one of the government's most substantial direct bets on an artificial intelligence business to date,"

Labour's £28bn National Wealth Fund, backed by the Treasury, is nearing agreement to invest tens of millions into Oxa, the Oxford-founded driverless vehicle start-up formerly Oxbotica. Oxa was founded in 2014 by Oxford academic Professor Paul Newman and conducted the first UK autonomous vehicle trials in 2016. The company has raised over £180m privately and develops software to convert existing vehicles into autonomous ones, with deployments in driverless shuttles and industrial logistics. The fund typically makes direct investments of £25m–£50m to crowd in larger private capital. The backing would be a major government direct investment in AI and aligns with planned trials of driverless taxis and buses alongside firms such as Uber, Lyft, Tesla and Wayve.

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