Alphabet To Invest $5 Billion In Waymo Self-Driving Unit

Tom Jowitt,
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A Waymo autonomous vehicle waiting at a railroad crossing in Austin, Texas. Image credit: Waymo

Senior management at Alphabet confirm substantial additional investment in the Waymo self-driving division

Alphabet is making another significant investment into one of its ‘Other Bets’ ventures, namely the self-driving firm Waymo.

The $5 billion investment was revealed by senior Alphabet executives on an earnings call this week, when the firm discussed its recent second quarter financial results.

The investment was then also confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) by the CEO of Waymo.

Last month Waymo had opened its autonomous ride-hailing service (Waymo One) to all residents of San Francisco, after similar move in Phoenix in 2020.

Image credit: Waymo

Alphabet funding

But the firm is also contending with an investigation by the US safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), after its preliminary probe of Waymo self-driving vehicles had uncovered more incidents that raised concerns.

The NHTSA is also investigating rival robotaxi service providers GM’s Cruise and Amazon’s Zoox.

Despite these investigations, Waymo parent Alphabet is committed to making another sizeable investment in its self-driving venture.

CNBC reported that Alphabet’s outgoing CFO Ruth Porat said during an earnings call with analysts and investors that the Google parent company will invest an additional $5 billion into Waymo.

“This new round of funding will enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving company,” Porat was quoted as saying Tuesday, adding Waymo is an “important example” of Alphabet’s long-standing investments.

Alphabet’s “Other Bets” unit, which includes Waymo, had delivered $365 million in quarterly revenue, up from $285 million a year ago. But the unit’s losses widened to $1.13 billion from $813 million in the year-earlier period.

CEO Sundar Pichai also reportedly said on the earnings call that Waymo provides 50,000 weekly paid trips, primarily in San Francisco and Phoenix. It has completed 2 million trips to date.

Previous funding

Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana also confirmed the latest investment from Alphabet on X and expressed his gratitude.

“Alphabet has committed up to $5B to Waymo,” Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana said on X. “We are grateful for their immense vote of confidence in our team and recognizing the amazing progress we’ve made with our technology, product, and commercialization efforts.”

Waymo had already raised $2.25 billion in its first external funding round back in 2020.

The company then raised another $2.5 billion in 2021 in a round that included funding from Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research Company and more.