Wayve

Wayve is a London-based autonomous driving technology company founded in 2017 by Dr Alex Kendall and Dr Amar Shah, two machine learning researchers from the University of Cambridge. Wayve pioneered a fundamentally different approach to self-driving: rather than relying on high-definition maps, hand-coded rules or expensive lidar arrays, the company trains a single AI system end-to-end on large volumes of real-world camera data — enabling vehicles to learn how to drive the way humans do, through experience and generalisation.

The company's platform, known as the AI Driver, is a hardware-agnostic and map-free autonomy stack that can be licensed directly to vehicle manufacturers. It supports levels from L2+ assisted driving through to L4 fully automated driving, and has been adopted by Nissan for integration into its next-generation ProPILOT system, slated for launch in fiscal year 2027. Wayve's system has demonstrated 'zero-shot' driving capability — operating without city-specific fine-tuning — across more than 500 cities in Europe, North America and Japan in a single year. The company is also planning commercial robotaxi trials with Uber beginning in 2026, alongside strategic investments from Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis.

Wayve has raised over $2.8 billion across multiple funding rounds, including a landmark $1.05 billion Series C — the largest-ever AI fundraise in UK history at the time — backed by SoftBank, Microsoft and NVIDIA. In February 2026, the company closed a $1.2 billion Series D led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford and the British Business Bank, bringing Wayve's valuation to $8.6 billion.