SoftBank Group has spearheaded a $1.05 billion investment in Cambridge-based AI company Wayve, aimed at advancing AI-driven self-driving vehicles. This Series C funding round, supported by NVIDIA and existing backer Microsoft, marks the largest investment in a UK AI company to date.
Founded in 2017, the UK startup plans to leverage this substantial investment to accelerate its mission of revolutionizing autonomous mobility through ’embodied intelligence.’ According to Wayve, Embodied AI represents a new frontier in AI development, surpassing generative AI and large language models (LLMs). This technology aims to enhance machine interactions and learning from human behavior in real-world environments.
Wayve believes that Embodied AI can significantly improve the usability and safety of autonomous driving systems by enabling them to handle unpredictable situations, such as sudden actions by drivers, pedestrians, or environmental factors.
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The company envisions a future where AI in vehicles offers features like intuition, language-responsive interfaces, personalized driving styles, and co-piloting to enhance the automated driving experience.
Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, emphasized the transformative potential of their technology, stating, “At Wayve, our vision is to develop autonomous technology that not only becomes a reality in millions of vehicles but also earns people’s trust by seamlessly integrating into their everyday lives to unlock extraordinary value.
This significant funding milestone highlights our team’s unwavering conviction that Embodied AI will address the long-standing challenges the industry has faced in scaling this technology to everyone, everywhere.”
With this investment, Wayve aims to launch the first Embodied AI products for production vehicles and further develop its hardware-agnostic, mapless solutions that enable original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to upgrade cars to higher levels of driving automation via software.
The company will also focus on scaling its foundation models, advancing Embodied AI research, and building an industry-leading AV2.0 Platform equipped with reliable simulation, measurement, and active learning tools for automotive applications. Additionally, Wayve plans to expand its operations and partnerships in new markets, amassing geographically diverse data assets and attracting global talent.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his pride in the UK’s role in pioneering technological advancements, stating, “From the first electric light bulb or the World Wide Web to AI and self-driving cars, the UK has a proud record of being at the forefront of some of the biggest technological advancements in history.
I’m incredibly proud that the UK is the home for pioneers like Wayve who are breaking ground as they develop the next generation of AI models for self-driving cars. The fact that a homegrown British business has secured the biggest investment yet in a UK AI company is a testament to our leadership in this industry and that our plan for the economy is working.”
Sunak highlighted the UK’s robust AI ecosystem, noting, “We are leaving no stone unturned to create the economic conditions for businesses to grow and thrive in the UK. We already have the third highest number of AI companies and private investment in AI in e world, and this announcement anchors the UK’s position as an AI superpower.”
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