The leader of the global autonomous driving industry, Waymo, has officially confirmed a new round of funding worth $16 billion. This significant investment directly raised Waymo's market valuation to $126 billion, marking that this driverless pioneer, owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company, has entered a new development phase.
Over the past two years, Waymo has shown strong expansion momentum. Currently, its autonomous taxi service is already operating in multiple cities across the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Miami, and through collaboration with Uber, it has entered the Atlanta and Austin markets. Compared to the $45 billion valuation during its Series C financing in October 2024, Waymo's value has doubled in over a year, attracting the attention of several top investment institutions, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Fund.
Waymo's stable market position is supported by its outstanding safety data. According to official disclosure, in more than 127 million miles of fully autonomous testing, its serious injury accident rate is 90% lower than that of human drivers. In terms of technology, Waymo insists on a "rule-driven" approach, using high-precision perception from LiDAR, radar, and cameras to achieve highly reliable decision-making within pre-mapped areas, which contrasts sharply with Tesla's "end-to-end" neural network approach.
At this new financial starting point, Waymo has set an ambitious 2026 expansion blueprint. The company plans to further extend its service area to more than a dozen major U.S. cities, including Dallas and Las Vegas, and actively prepare to enter London and Tokyo, officially launching the commercial operation of autonomous driving technology on an international scale.
Key Points:
💰 Valuation Achieves Significant Growth: Waymo completed a new $16 billion funding round, increasing its valuation from $45 billion in 2024 to $126 billion, securing its leading position in the Western autonomous driving industry.
🛡️ Expansion Supported by Safety Records: With 127 million miles of real-world operational data, Waymo achieved a 90% reduction in serious accidents compared to human drivers, proving the reliability of its rule-driven technology approach.
🌍 Initiating Global Operations: In addition to covering more than a dozen core cities across the U.S., Waymo plans to establish operations in London and Tokyo in 2026, taking a crucial step toward international commercialization.
