Toronto-based self-driving truck startup Waabi raised a $750M Series C led by Khosla and G2 and partners with Uber, which can invest $250M based on performance
The company had also moved from funding its driving system to pursuing deployment through a Volvo partnership for Texas pilots and a planned launch. The Series C supplies a much larger capital base as those commercial ambitions are tested.
First-order effects
Waabi receives $750M in new Series C capital from Khosla and G2, while Uber gains an option to invest up to $250M if performance conditions are met.
The Uber partnership ties part of Waabi’s future financing to execution, giving the startup a strategic platform partner alongside its existing vehicle-manufacturing relationship.
Second-order effects
Waabi can fund a longer deployment runway around its Volvo work, increasing pressure on autonomous-trucking rivals to demonstrate both commercial partnerships and durable access to capital.
Uber’s contingent investment structure makes operational performance—not just a financing event—central to the partnership, potentially shaping how Waabi prioritizes milestones with strategic partners.
Third-order effects
If similar structures persist, autonomous-driving funding may increasingly concentrate around startups that can pair large venture rounds with distribution or fleet partners, rather than relying on standalone technology financing.
Conditional strategic investments could make the boundary between customer, platform partner, and investor less distinct in capital-intensive autonomy markets.
The trend: Autonomous-trucking companies are moving toward milestone-linked financing backed by strategic partners as deployment becomes the key test of their AI systems.
Excite to be partner since the very beginning! Amazing how much more economic good startups can be. One twentieth the cash usage to get to better safety than competitors! And now robotaxi to boot!
$UBER steady supporting fragmentation and aggregation. “...roughly $250 million in milestone-based capital from $Uber to support the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis exclusively on its platform.”
We have built a Physical AI Platform that enables true scale and generalizes across form factors, geographies, and environments. It is proven in autonomous trucking and we are now expanding to robotaxis. Learn about what we are building: https://waabi.ai/... [image]
For the first time in the industry, we have created one shared brain to power the two largest self driving applications - trucks and robotaxis.. Some would argue this isn't the first.. although it's not clear when Semi would get FSD.
Today, we are thrilled to announce that we have raised $1B USD of new capital to accelerate commercial progress in autonomous trucks and expand to robotaxis! For the first time in the industry, this enables one shared brain to power both applications—trucks and robotaxis. This [v…
The largest fundraise in Canadian history just happened today... @Waabi_ai, the AI-Powered Self-Driving company, just raised a $1B Round. Raquel Urtasun grew up in Pamplona, Spain. She left Spain for a PhD, then built a career across MIT, Berkeley, and Toronto - becoming a [image…
Excited to be partner with Waabi since the very beginning! Self driving is really here for trucks. Amazing how much more economic good startups can be. One twentieth the cash usage to get to better safety than competitors! And now robotaxi to boot!
Physical AI's moment is here and @Waabi_ai is leading the way Excited to share we have raised $1B USD of new capital to accelerate the commercial deployment of autonomous trucks and meaningfully expand to robotaxis! Partnering with Uber to deploy 25,000 or more Waabi [video]
Congrats to @RaquelUrtasun, @LiorRon, and the rest of the @Waabi_ai team, on another exciting milestone. Can't wait to launch the Waabi robotaxi on @Uber!