Reports say Waymo plans to raise approximately $16 billion, with a valuation close to $110 billion

IT Home February 1 News, according to Bloomberg, sources familiar with the matter revealed that Waymo, the autonomous driving subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is planning to raise approximately $16 billion (IT Home note: at current exchange rates, about 111.433 billion RMB) in a funding round. After this round, the subsidiary’s valuation will approach $110 billion (at current exchange rates, about 766.102 billion RMB).

These anonymous sources said that since the negotiations are not yet public, Alphabet will invest about $13 billion in this autonomous taxi company during this funding round, with the remaining funds coming from external investors, including new investors Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and Dragoneer Investment Group.

Sources said that Waymo’s current funding round is expected to close in February. The company’s previous funding round was completed in October 2024, with a valuation of over $45 billion, led by its parent company Alphabet, which owns Google.

Waymo stated in a release, “We do not comment on non-public financial matters, but the company’s development path is very clear: based on over 20 million trips completed, we are focusing on safe, excellent operations and technological leadership to meet the huge market demand in autonomous mobility.”

Waymo has launched fully driverless ride-hailing services supervised by no human safety drivers in six U.S. cities, charging fares to passengers, covering the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and other locations. It also provides related mobility services through Uber’s app in Austin and Atlanta. The company plans to significantly expand its commercial service footprint this year, extending operations to more U.S. cities and entering the UK market.

Currently, many companies are competing in the autonomous vehicle fleet ride-hailing market. Tesla has planned to launch similar services and is conducting limited driverless operations without human safety drivers in Austin; Amazon’s subsidiary Zoox has developed a custom autonomous taxi without traditional driving controls, which is already operating on the Las Vegas Strip and conducting road tests in other cities around San Francisco.

Bloomberg reported in December last year that Waymo was planning to raise $15 billion, with a valuation exceeding $100 billion.