On Monday, Waymo, the well-known self-driving car company, said that it had secured $16 billion in a funding round, valuing the Alphabet subsidiary at $126 billion.
The significant investment was hailed by Waymo co-chief executives Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana as evidence that the era of widespread autonomous transportation has here.
“This infusion of capital will ensure we are positioned to move forward with unprecedented velocity, while maintaining our industry-leading safety standards,” Dolgov and Mawakana said in a blog post.
According to the executives, Waymo is concentrating on expanding its robotaxi service both domestically and abroad this year.
With their cameras and sensors, Waymo’s white Jaguars have become a common sight on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
As of early 2026, its service is available in ten US cities, with plans to reach London and roughly 20 other major cities in the same year.
Last year, Waymo more than tripled its annual volume to 15 million rides and now provides more than 400,000 rides weekly in the six major US metropolitan areas where it operates, according to the company.
“We are no longer proving a concept; we are scaling a commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 additional cities in 2026, including Tokyo and London,” Dolgov and Mawakana said.
“We have demonstrated that our technology is not just the most advanced manifestation of AI in the physical world, but a vital service that people have come to rely on in their daily lives.”
Alphabet took a big part in the recent funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group, joined by Silicon Valley venture capital titans like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, according to Waymo.
“Waymo has not only taught a car to drive itself, but to do so meaningfully better than any human or competing system, and we believe that lead will endure,” Dragoneer partner Jared Middleman said in the blog post.
Letting go of the steering wheel is no longer a fantasy as Waymo’s robotaxis in the United States and China’s Apollo Go — which has been growing rapidly over the past year — demonstrate the reliability of fully autonomous driving, where responsibility lies with the machine and not the human.
Rivals such as Uber are fast emerging. The ride-sharing giant last month unveiled a Lucid robotaxi, aiming to put a fleet of them to work in San Francisco later this year.
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