The British Business Bank has invested £25 million into Wayve, the UK autonomous driving company, as part of a $1.2 billion Series D investment round.

The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and brings in new investment from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, Icehouse Ventures, Schroders Capital and other global institutional investors.

Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber participated in the round, reflecting support for Wayve's embodied AI as a foundational software layer for deploying autonomy at a global scale. Global automotive manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis also invested, in support of advancing Wayve's unified AI platform spanning L2+ “hands off” through L3/L4 “eyes off” driving across vehicles, brands and markets.

Wayve specialises in developing AI foundation models for autonomous driving. Their technology equips vehicles with a ‘robot brain’ that can learn from and interact with real-world environments. Wayve pioneered the application of AI technology to autonomous driving in 2017 and has since industrialised its architecture into a production-ready autonomy platform.

The Bank’s investment into Wayve is one of its largest direct equity investments to date. This follows an increase in the Bank’s financial capacity to £25.6bn last year and reforms to its investment capabilities, allowing it to increase the number and size of investments into scale ups at the forefront of innovation and growth.

The British Business Bank first had exposure to Wayve through its investment into Balderton’s Fund VI in 2019. The Bank started its co-investment activity in 2021 and has since built a portfolio of 45 companies, making it the most active late-stage investor in UK deeptech and life sciences.

Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at British Business Bank, said, “We are making larger investments in high growth companies like Wayve to support the UK’s most promising businesses to start, scale, and stay in the UK.

“Companies like Wavye deserve deeper domestic backing, but too often UK institutional capital is absent from later stage funding rounds. Alongside looking to support larger growth funds, the Bank is stepping up and investing in these companies, both to encourage UK institutions to invest alongside us and to give the UK taxpayer exposure to the country’s highest-potential tech champions.”

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said, “Today’s investment is a big vote of confidence in the growth potential of Wayve, a great British business that is scaling here and expanding across the world. This funding round will cement the future for the firm, securing jobs, boosting growth and the economy.”

George Mills, Investment Director at British Business Bank, said, “It’s difficult to imagine a future without self-driving cars. Wayve has emerged as a global leader in this race and is at the forefront of innovation with its AI licencing model. This new funding round will support Wayve in developing its technology, allowing it to go toe-to-toe with others in the autonomous driving market.”

Alex Kendall, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayve, said, “With $1.5 billion secured, we are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves. Autonomy will not scale through city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone. It will scale through platforms that automakers can trust, deploy globally and improve continuously. This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.”

The funding for Wayve will accelerate the company’s shift from AI research leadership to scaled commercial deployment of its end-to-end AI platform. From 2026, consumers will experience Wayve-powered robotaxis through commercial trials with Uber. From 2027, they will be able to buy passenger vehicles equipped with Wayve’s AI Driver, starting with L2+ “hands-off” capability that allows the vehicle to steer, navigate and respond to traffic under driver supervision.