Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Alphabet, has raised 16 billion dollars. This funding will support its plan to grow its fleet of driverless taxis to more than a dozen new international cities this year, including London and Tokyo.
The investment round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital. It values Waymo at 126 billion dollars. Parent company Alphabet also supported the round and remains the majority investor. Other significant investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Mubadala Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. Additional participants were BDT & MSD Partners, CapitalG, Fidelity Management & Research Company, GV, Kleiner Perkins, Perry Creek Capital, and Temasek.
Waymo states the new capital will fuel its accelerated growth. The company recently began offering rides to and from San Francisco International Airport and has expanded its robotaxi service throughout Northern California and several major U.S. metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami.
The company began as the Google self-driving project, testing its technology on public roads in Silicon Valley. In 2016, it expanded testing to Phoenix, which later became its first public robotaxi market where customers could hail driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.
Waymo accelerated its expansion in August 2023 after receiving the final permit to operate a commercial robotaxi service in California. It launched a limited service in San Francisco, later expanding across the greater Bay Area and onto local freeways. It also expanded to Los Angeles. Through a partnership with Uber, Waymo launched in Austin and Atlanta in 2025, and began service in Miami in early 2026.
This geographic expansion now translates to 400,000 rides provided every week across six major U.S. metropolitan areas. In 2025 alone, the company more than tripled its annual ride volume to 15 million rides, surpassing 20 million lifetime rides to date.
In a blog post, Waymo stated, “We are no longer proving a concept. We are scaling a commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 additional cities in 2026, including Tokyo and London.”
This rapid growth has also led to increased scrutiny. Waymo’s robotaxis have exhibited missteps, and the technology has created problems for some residents. Some vehicles have shown dangerous behaviors, particularly in school zones.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board have opened investigations into illegal behavior by Waymo robotaxis around school buses. The NHTSA launched another investigation last week after a Waymo robotaxi, traveling at about 6 miles per hour, struck a child near a school in Santa Monica. The child sustained minor injuries.