Waymo Secures $16 Billion to Expand Robotaxi Service to London and Tokyo
Waymo raises a massive $16 billion funding round to accelerate its international expansion into over a dozen new cities. The Alphabet-owned company currently provides 400,000 autonomous rides weekly across six major U.S. markets.
Waymo raises $16 billion in a new funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital, pushing its total valuation to $126 billion. The Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company plans to use this massive capital injection to scale its driverless taxicab fleet to more than a dozen new international cities, including London and Tokyo. Parent company Alphabet maintains its position as the majority investor in this record-breaking round.
The company currently provides 400,000 robotaxi rides every week across six major U.S. metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami. Waymo more than triples its annual ride volume in 2025 to reach 15 million rides, pushing its lifetime total past the 20 million mark. The company credits this rapid growth to recent expansions onto freeways in the Bay Area and successful partnerships, such as its 2025 collaboration with Uber to launch in Austin and Atlanta.
This massive funding signals a major shift for the former Google self-driving project, which spent years slowly testing its technology on Silicon Valley roads. Waymo explicitly states that it is no longer just proving a concept, but instead executing a global scale-up. With fresh capital from major tech investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Silver Lake, Waymo is positioning itself to dominate the international driverless transportation market.