Waymo, the autonomous vehicle subsidiary of Alphabet, announced it has raised $16 billion in new funding to expand its driverless ride-hailing service and scale its autonomous vehicle fleet.
The company said the capital will be used to increase the number of vehicles in service, enter additional markets, and continue development of its self-driving technology. Alphabet remains Waymo’s majority owner.
Waymo currently operates fully autonomous ride-hailing services in several U.S. cities, including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Riders in those markets can book trips without a human driver present in the vehicle. The company completes hundreds of thousands of paid rides each week.
The funding comes as autonomous vehicle operators operate under increased oversight from regulators and local governments. Federal and state agencies have expanded monitoring of autonomous systems following safety incidents involving driverless vehicles across the industry, focusing on vehicle behavior, collision response, and interactions with pedestrians and emergency responders.
Waymo has said its autonomous system has driven more than 127 million miles and reduced serious injury crashes compared with human-driven vehicles, though regulators continue to evaluate autonomous systems as deployments expand.
Industry analysts note that while autonomous ride-hailing has moved beyond pilot programs in a small number of cities, large-scale deployment remains constrained by fleet costs, regulatory approval processes, and the challenge of maintaining consistent performance across varied driving conditions.
Waymo began as a self-driving research project within Google in 2009 before becoming a standalone company under Alphabet in 2016. Commercial ride-hailing has since become its primary business focus.
The company did not provide a timeline for entering new cities or detail how the funding would be allocated across operations, research, or regulatory engagement.
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