Mubadala and CPPIB Invest in Waymo
Posted on 03/02/2020
Alphabet’s self-driving company unit Waymo LLC disclosed its first external investment round, led by Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), and Mubadala Investment Company. Additional investors in this initial US$ 2.25 billion close include Magna International, Andreessen Horowitz, and AutoNation, as well as Alphabet. AutoNation disclosed that it invested US$ 50 million in Waymo.
“Waymo is the proven leader in self-driving technology, is the only autonomous vehicle company with a public ride-hailing service, and is successfully scaling its fully driverless experience,” said Egon Durban, Co-CEO, Silver Lake, and nominee for Waymo’s Operating Board in a press release. “We’re deeply aligned with Waymo’s commitment to making our roads safer, and look forward to working together to help advance and scale the Waymo Driver in the U.S. and beyond.”
Waymo was originally known as the “Google Self-Driving Car Project”. On July 2, 2019, Waymo was granted a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a “Drivered AV Passenger Service” pilot and provide passenger service in test automated vehicles with a Waymo-trained driver in the driver’s seat of each vehicle. All of the vehicles in Waymo’s pilot fleet in California are plug-in hybrid electric Chrysler Pacificas, manufactured by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. At the onset of 2020, Waymo revealed it would initiate mapping and then testing its “autonomous” long-haul trucks in Texas and parts of New Mexico. Waymo has spent around nine years in developing its automated-driving system. In 2019, Waymo reportedly added 400 engineers to the company. Engineers at the company are known as “Waymonauts”.
Waymo is in the Other Bets reporting segment of Alphabet, which the other is Google. ther Bets is a combination of multiple operating segments that are not individually material, which includes Waymo, Access, Calico, CapitalG, GV, Verily, and X.