Waymo has raised an additional $2.5 billion in a new funding round as it continues its work on developing advanced autonomous driving systems.
The self-driving division of Alphabet is regarded as one of the conglomerate’s ‘Other Bets’ alongside the likes of Access, Calico, CapitalG, GV, Verily, and X. For many years, Waymo was operating solely from funds within Alphabet but in March 2020, it raised $2.25 billion in its first external funding round. An extension of this round saw investments rise to $3.2 billion, CNBC reports.
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This latest $2.5 billion round included funding from Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Magna International, Mubadala Investment Company, Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake, T. Row Price Associates, Temasek, Tiger Global, and Alphabet itself.
The funding round comes a couple of months after John Krafcik stepped down as chief executive officer of Waymo after five and a half years. Krafcik was instrumental in the technology company securing deals with companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis, Volvo, and Daimler.
Krafcik has been replaced by Waymo’s former chief operating officer Tekedra Mawakana and Waymo’s former chief technical officer Dmitri Dolgov. Mawakana was first appointed as COO of Waymo in 2019 following previous stints at AOL, Yahoo, and eBay. Meanwhile, Dolgov had been CTO since 2016 and was formerly a researcher at the Toyota Research Institute.
