Exclusive: Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall discusses the autonomous future for cars and robots

Wayve, a U.K.-based autonomous vehicle startup, initially began as a software platform integrated into a compact electric vehicle named Renault Twizy. Equipped with an array of cameras, the founders, Alex Kendall and Amar Shah, both PhD graduates, fine-tuned the deep-learning algorithms powering the vehicle’s autonomous capabilities until it could navigate through medieval city streets independently.

Remarkably, Wayve achieved this without relying on expensive lidar cameras or radars, signaling a breakthrough in autonomous technology.

Today, Wayve has evolved into an AI model company and has secured a significant milestone: a $1.05 billion Series C funding round led by notable investors including SoftBank, Nvidia, and Microsoft. This marks the largest AI fundraising endeavor in the U.K. to date and ranks among the top 20 globally. Notably, Yann LeCun, Meta’s head of AI, also invested in Wayve during its early stages.

With this substantial investment, Wayve aims to market its autonomous driving model to various automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and companies developing new autonomous robots. This strategic move positions Wayve as a key player in the rapidly advancing field of autonomous technology.