MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Waymo, the self-driving car company under Alphabet, said that it had raised $16 billion in a new investment round. The massive cash injection values the company at $126 billion, more than twice the valuation it had a little over a year ago.
The investment round was led by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, as well as a number of established venture capital companies. Waymo’s leadership says the money will be used to scale at an “unprecedented velocity,” shifting the technology from a science project that has managed to work, but only, after more than a decade of effort, not fail, into a global-scale commercial business.
Ramping Up for “Commercial Reality”
And Waymo’s co-chief executives, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, said the company is no longer just trying to prove that self-driving cars function. They think that the service is now a “commercial reality” that is statistically safer than human drivers.
In 2025, Waymo handled 15 million trips, triple the volume it did a year earlier. Today, you can summon a Waymo robotaxi in cities such as Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and recently added Miami. The company says its “Waymo Driver” system has logged more than 127 million miles of driving on its own, which it asserts is producing a 90% reduction in serious-injury crashes compared with human-driven cars.
A Hurricane Spreading Across the U.S. and London
The new capital is already planned to play host to an ambitious expansion in 2026. Waymo plans to expand its service for riders to 11 other cities in the United States, including Dallas, Washington D.C., Las Vegas and Detroit.
Perhaps most significantly, Waymo is gearing up for its first international rollout in London. This is a big step for the company, one where it will finally test its software against the different nature of European roads and traffic, narrow streets, and different driving laws.
Growth Challenges and Safety Checks
Financial success aside, Waymo’s swift expansion has encountered some recent speed bumps. The company is being investigated by federal safety regulators for two primary reasons:
• School Bus Safety: Waymo was forced to recall its software in December after Texas data indicated that the company’s robotaxis had illegally passed through stopped school buses at least 19 times.
• Santa Monica Incident: A Waymo vehicle hit a child outside an elementary school in California last month. Waymo has said its car braked hard and decelerated significantly before the impact, possibly preventing a more severe injury, although experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration continue to review the incident.
The company claims that it is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to ensure its software improves so that things like this aren’t happening, particularly in school zones.
The Future of the “Robotaxi” Industry
The $16 billion funding round is one of the biggest ever for the industry’s self-driving technology. It’s a sign that investors think Waymo is the clear front-runner in the race against rivals including Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox.
By holding on to Alphabet as its largest investor and adding new partners, including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, Waymo is positioning itself for the lead of the pack. For people in the expansion cities, the “magic” of a driverless ride could be only an app download away later this year.
Key Highlights
- Waymo raised $16 billion, valuing the company at $126 billion.
- The company completed 15 million trips in 2025 and now offers 400,000 rides a week.
- Growth is coming to another 11 U.S. cities in 2026, including Dallas, Detroit and Las Vegas.
- Waymo will introduce its first international service in London later this year.
- Federal regulators are looking into a spate of school bus-related incidents and pedestrian accidents in California. Alphabet is still the company’s largest investor.
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