UK’s Wayve Accelerates Development of Autonomous Vehicles With $200M Raise

London-based autonomous vehicle startup Wayve on Tuesday (Jan. 18) announced that it has raised $200 million in a Series B funding round backed by a group of global financial and strategic investors.

This latest funding round brings the total amount of equity raised to more than $258 million since its inception in 2017. Wayve said the infusion reinforces its position as a leader in autonomous driving and pioneering an artificial intelligence led approach to autonomous vehicles.

The round was led by Eclipse Ventures with participation from new investors including D1 Capital Partners, Baillie Gifford, Moore Strategic Ventures and Linse Capital, as well as support from Microsoft and Virgin, and early-stage investors Compound and Balderton Capital. They join strategic investor Ocado Group and a group of angel investors that include AI and industrial leaders, such as Sir Richard Branson, Rosemary Leith, Linda Levinson, David Richter, Pieter Abbeel and Yann LeCun.

“We were the first team to develop the scientific breakthroughs in deep learning to build autonomous driving technology that can easily scale to new markets using a data-learned approach,” said Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

Wayve’s AV2.0 technology is crafted to be the most adaptable system for fleet operators. With assistance from machine learning, Wayve said it is building a more scalable AV platform that can quickly and safely adapt its driving intelligence to new cities, different use-cases and vehicle types.

Last summer, Wayve announced that Aldi, the German family-owned discount supermarket chains with more than 10,000 stores in 20 countries, will be testing out its autonomous vans to fulfill delivery orders in 2022, with human drivers overseeing the process to ensure its safety for the duration of the year-long trial.

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