Waymo announces $16 billion funding round
A Waymo vehicle leaves a charging point on January 15, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
AlphabetOn Monday, autonomous vehicle unit Waymo said it has raised a $16 billion financing round that gives the company a “post-money” valuation of $126 billion.
The new funding is Alphabet’s latest move to fund Waymo’s continued expansion into more markets.
The new valuation is more than double what Waymo achieved after its last funding round in October 2024. This was a $5.6 billion Series C round at a $45 billion valuation. At the time, Alphabet committed $5 billion in a multi-year investment in Waymo.
“This milestone is built on a foundation of safety that is now statistically superior to human driving,” Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov wrote in a post. blog post. “We are no longer proving a concept; we are scaling a commercial reality.”
The latest funding round was led by Alphabet, along with previous backers including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price. The new round includes additional investors such as Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Alphabet-owned investment company GV.
According to the blog, Alphabet itself is the “majority of investors.”
Waymo said the new capital will help the company “move with unprecedented speed while maintaining our industry-leading security standards.” “Our focus is now on a global scale, bringing the safety and magic of the Waymo Driver to even more cities in the United States and internationally this year.”
CNBC previously reported that Google’s sister company was preparing to raise at least $15 billion at a $110 billion valuation.
Waymo’s robotaxi service currently operates in the Austin, San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Miami markets and launched in January.
Waymo plans to launch in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego and Washington in 2026. It also plans to expand into London, its first international market.
As the company expanded rapidly, it began to encounter difficulties.
Waymo issued a software recall for its vehicles in December after Texas officials said robotaxis had illegally passed school buses at least 19 times since the start of the school year, and last month Waymo crashed into a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California. The incident is being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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