Wayve Technologies Ltd is a British autonomous driving technology company focused on developing self-driving vehicle systems through end-to-end deep learning. Founded in 2017 by researchers from the University of Cambridge, WayveâÂÂs approach eschews detailed 3D maps and hand-coded rules, in favor of a self-learning âÂÂAI driverâ that learns from camera data and driving experience. The London-headquartered startup has garnered significant attention and funding for its visually-based method.
Wayve was founded in Cambridge, England, in 2017 by Amar Shah and Alex Kendall, two machine learning PhD students at the University of Cambridge. Shah initially served as CEO while Kendall was CTO, and the pair set out to develop an unconventional self-driving car system using machine learning at every layer of the driving task. In May 2018, Wayve emerged from stealth mode with backing from early-stage investors. At this time the company had around 10 employees, and its advisory investors included UberâÂÂs Chief Scientist, Zoubin Ghahramani, who shared WayveâÂÂs vision of a learning-centric driving AI.
In 2019, Wayve achieved a milestone by training a car to drive autonomously on public roads it had never seen before, using only cameras, a basic GPS map, and end-to-end deep learning control. The company moved its base to London and secured a $20 million Series A funding round in November 2019. This investment enabled Wayve to launch a pilot fleet of autonomous electric vehicles in central London for real-world testing. During these trials, WayveâÂÂs cars (such as retrofitted Jaguar I-Pace SUVs) began navigating the complex, narrow streets of London to prove the systemâÂÂs ability to adapt to challenging urban scenarios.
In 2020, co-founder Amar Shah departed the company, and Alex Kendall assumed the role of CEO.
The startup joined the Microsoft for Startups: Autonomous Driving program in 2020, leveraging Microsoft AzureâÂÂs cloud computing for training its machine learning models at scale. It also committed to testing exclusively on electric vehicles, and a goal to reduce carbon emissions.
In 2021, Wayve entered pilot programs with major UK retailers. It launched a 12-month autonomous delivery trial with supermarket chain Asda, and received a ã10â¯million ($13.6â¯million) investment from online grocer Ocado Group as part of a partnership to develop self-driving grocery delivery vans. OcadoâÂÂs backing gave Wayve access to a fleet of delivery vans for data collection and testing on busy London routes (with human safety drivers present) to train its AI in urban traffic.
In 2022, after a successful Series B funding round, the company extended road testing beyond the UK to other regions, and, by 2023, in multiple countries. The company had begun operating in the United States and in continental Europe, in preparation for larger commercial deployments.
In 2023, Wayve announced a collaboration with Nissan to integrate WayveâÂÂs AI-driven software into its ProPilot ADAS system, slated to launch in fiscal year 2027.
Wayve received strategic investment from Uber, in 2024, to jointly develop autonomous ride-hailing services. The two companies plan to trial a fully driverless robotaxi service in London, supported by a UK government program to accelerate commercial self-driving pilots to as early as 2026. To demonstrate the scalability of its technology, Wayve conducted an âÂÂAI-500â roadshow project, driving in dozens of cities across Asia, Europe, and North America using the same AI model. By mid-2025, it had completed autonomous driving demos in 90 cities without prior HD mapping.
In April 2025, Wayve opened its first Asian research hub in Japan, with investment by SoftBank, to improve its modelâÂÂs generalization using local driving data. That year, the company conducted driving tests in over 500 cities in Europe, North America and Japan without city-specific programming.
In February 2026, Nissan, Uber and Wayve announced their collaboration on robotaxi development, with the aim of launching a pilot programme in Tokyo by late 2026. Wayve also formed a strategic alliance with Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis on personal vehicle and robotaxi applications.
Wayve has been backed by a mix of venture capital (VC) firms, corporate investors, and individuals. Its initial seed funding came from funds such as Compound (NYC) and Firstminute Capital (London), as well as Cambridge-based angel investors, in 2018. Academic Pieter Abbeel and UberâÂÂs chief scientist, Zoubin Ghahraman,i were early backers.
In November 2019, Wayve raised a $20 million Series A led by Eclipse Ventures, with participation from Balderton Capital and other prior investors. The Series A financing was used to fund the companyâÂÂs first autonomous trials in London, and marked the first time a European self-driving car startup had secured a U.S. VC as lead investor.
In October 2021, Ocado Group invested ã10 million (approximately $13.6 million) in Wayve as a strategic partner in autonomous grocery delivery. This brought WayveâÂÂs total funding to around $60 million at that time. The Series B round followed in January 2022, when Wayve announced $200 million in new funding led by Eclipse Ventures, with D1 Capital Partners, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Linse Capital. Balderton, Microsoft and Virgin Group joined as strategic backers. Baillie Gifford and Compound also participated; Ocado increased its stake as a strategic investor; and Meta AI head Yann LeCun and Richard Branson also became investors.
WayveâÂÂs Series C in May 2024 closed a $1.05 billion, led by JapanâÂÂs SoftBank Group. The funding round was the largest-ever for a UK AI company, and included new investor Nvidia, and returning investors Microsoft and Eclipse Ventures, among others. Uber also joined as a stratgic partner and a stakeholder. The Series C round increased WayveâÂÂs total funding raised to about $1.3 billion to date from investors including SoftBank, Microsoft and Nvidia, and lifted WayveâÂÂs valuation into âÂÂunicornâ status.
In February 2026, Wayve announced a $1.2 billion Series D funding round; later that month, the company reported that $1.5 billion had been raised from, primarily, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Nissan, and existing backers Uber, Microsoft and Nvidia, increasing Wayve's overall valuation to $8.6 billion.
WayveâÂÂs self-driving approach centers on end-to-end deep learning and a vision-based AI system. Unlike conventional autonomous vehicles that depend on high-definition maps, hand-coded rules, and arrays of expensive lidar sensors, WayveâÂÂs platform learns to drive predominantly using camera data and machine learning algorithms. The company refers to its AI-driven driving software as an âÂÂEmbodied AIâ or AI Driver, emphasizing that the system learns from experience (both real and simulated) to handle complex or novel situations rather than following pre-programmed instructions, not unlike Tesla's approach.
The Wayve hardware-agnostic autonomy stack consists of a suite of video cameras, with basic automotive sensors, mounted on the vehicle, and paired with onboard compute units that are powered by GPUs to run the AI models. This vision-only philosophy is similar to TeslaâÂÂs Autopilot/FSDB model, but WayveâÂÂs solution is vehicle-agnostic and mapless. WayveâÂÂs strategy is to provide its driving AI as an OEM-ready platform; it plans to license or embed its technology into vehicles made by established automakers rather than build its own cars. WayveâÂÂs development vehicles currently use NvidiaâÂÂs Orin system-on-chip as the onboard computer for running the AI model, but CEO Kendall has noted that the software can run on âÂÂwhatever GPU [an automaker] already has in their vehiclesâ Wayve has built a cloud infrastructure, largely on Microsoft Azure, to process petabytes of this data, and uses simulation tools (known internally as the âÂÂWayve Infinityâ simulator) to synthetically generate and practice rare or dangerous scenarios for the AI to learn from.
Wayve is a privately held company headquartered in London, England, with its primary research and development office in the Kings Cross area of London. The company was initially incorporated as Wayve Technologies Ltd in the UK. Wayve has also established a presence in the U.S., in Silicon Valley); in Canada, with a research hub in Vancouver; in Yokohama, Japan; in Leonberg, Germany; and in Herzliya, Israel.
The Leadership team includes research scientists and engineers with backgrounds in computer vision, robotics, and automotive systems. President Erez Dagan was hired in 2024, following two decades at Mobileye; chief scientist Jamie Shotton is formerly of Microsoft Research; CEO Alex Kendall, originally from New Zealand with a PhD in computer vision from Cambridge, took over as CEO in 2020 after the departure of his co-founder Amar Shah.