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Waymo raised another $2.5 billion because a series of investors continued to support its driverless car project, which raised concerns about the cash consumption rate of Alphabet’s companies.
Waymo started as a Google project in 2009 and is generally regarded as an industry leader. Its driverless “robot taxi” service in Phoenix has no competitors in the United States.
But with the integration of competitors, competition is also intensifying. In the past year alone, Uber’s driverless unit merged with Aurora, Lyft’s “Level 5” unit was sold to a Toyota unit, and General Motors’ driverless unit Cruise acquired the startup Voyage.
Waymo declined to comment on its valuation, which reportedly exceeded $30 billion last year. Cruise is also worth more than 30 billion U.S. dollars, and last week obtained the first permit from California regulators to operate driverless passenger services in the state.
The deployment time of driverless technology is much longer than expected in most industries a few years ago. The large amount of cash required also benefits Alphabet, which has $135 billion in cash on hand.
Co-CEOs Dmitri Dolgov (Dmitri Dolgov) and Tekedra Mawakana (Tekedra Mawakana) said on Wednesday: “The challenge of artificial intelligence is no greater than the large-scale construction and deployment of fully automated technology. It’s a big challenge.”
Waymo said that the new funding will help “continue to advance” what it calls “Waymo Driver”, an Android-like operating system that it seeks to deploy through partnerships with Volvo Cars, Daimler Trucks and Stellattis.
Waymo raised $3.2 billion from outside investors in early 2020. The company declined to disclose the rate of cash consumption, but confirmed that it has more than 2,000 employees. LinkedIn lists 2,407 employees.
A former Google employee estimated operating costs to be approximately US$1 million per person, indicating that the new round of financing will cover only 12 months of activities. A competitor’s executive said that Waymo’s annual cost may be significantly reduced, but it will still exceed $1 billion.
At least eight executives have left in recent months, including those responsible for finance, manufacturing, safety, automotive partnerships, future cars, and investor relations.
John Krafcik stepped down after serving as the head for five years in April. Krafcik is a car production expert who has led Hyundai Motor’s North American business. It is widely believed that his departure was because Waymo acknowledged that his role-deploying tens of thousands of driverless robots in multiple cities-will be better than expected The time is much longer.
Alphabet led the investment and Tiger Global participated for the first time. All existing investors are involved, including Andreessen Horowitz, T Rowe Price, Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity, Mubadala, Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake, Temasek, and auto suppliers Magna and Auto Retailer AutoNation.
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