Alphabet's Self Driving car company Waymo secures $2.25 billlion in funding

The Self Driving tech company, Waymo has secured around $2.25 billion in investments

Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Mubadala Investment Company led the latest funding round for Waymo. Other investors such as Magna International, Andreessen Horowitz, and AutoNation, along with its parent Alphabet also participated in the round.

Self-driving and autonomous vehicles are the latest trends in the auto industry. Artificial Intelligence, machine learning are one of the key factors driving innovations in self-driving cars.

Executive Opinion

CEO, Waymo, John Krafcik, said, "We've always approached our mission as a team sport, collaborating with our OEM and supplier partners, our operations partners, and the communities we serve to build and deploy the world's most experienced driver. Today, we're expanding that team, adding financial investors and important strategic partners who bring decades of experience investing in and supporting successful technology companies building transformative products. With this injection of capital and business acumen, alongside Alphabet, we’ll deepen our investment in our people, our technology, and our operations, all in support of the deployment of
the Waymo Driver around the world.”

Co-CEO, Silver Lake, and nominee for Waymo's Operating Board, Egon Durban, said, "Waymo is the proven leader in self-driving technology, is the only autonomous vehicle company with a public ride-hailing service, and is successfully scaling its fully driverless experience. We’re deeply aligned with Waymo’s commitment to making our roads safer, and look forward to working together to help advance and scale the Waymo Driver in the U.S. and beyond."

Waymo's Achievements and Footprints

Waymo One is one of the first public self-driving ride-hailing services. It is actively serving in the US state of Arizona. Different vehicle platforms, goods delivery platforms like Waymo Via and other business applications are leveraging Waymo Driver, notes the announcement.

The Waymo Driver has driven more than 20 million miles on public roads across over 25 cities, and over 10 billion miles in simulation. Other milestones include the first vehicles delivery of  (electric cars and Class 8 trucks) L4 autonomous vehicle.

These vehicles are equipped with fifth-generation hardware, with all-new, more powerful compute and more capable sensing, notes the announcement.