Wayve

Wayve was founded in 2017 in Cambridge by Amar Shah and Alex Kendall, two machine learning researchers who had identified a fundamental problem with the dominant approach to autonomous driving: systems based on HD maps, expensive lidar and pre-programmed rules were too brittle to scale in the real world. Wayve built a radically different approach: an AI system that learns to drive primarily from video data, through end-to-end deep learning. Wayve's AI doesn't follow rules — it generalises from experience, like a human driver. In February 2026, Wayve raised $1.5B in a Series D round from Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Nissan and existing investors including Uber, Microsoft and Nvidia, reaching an $8.6B valuation. The company plans commercial robotaxi trials in London in 2026 and deployment on consumer vehicles from 2027.