is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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Waabi, the Toronto-based autonomous trucking startup, is expanding its portfolio to include robotaxis. And it’s bringing Uber along for the ride.
Raquel Urtasun, the former chief scientist at Uber’s now defunct Advanced Technologies Group, founded Waabi in 2021 to be a more “AI-centric approach” to autonomous vehicles. That approach initially focused on trucking, with Waabi using its proprietary software to automate driving on commercial delivery routes in Texas. But with self-driving trucks turning out to be a way harder problem than originally thought, and robotaxis seemingly having their own moment, Waabi is now turning its focus to autonomous rideshare vehicles as a demonstration of its “physical AI” prowess.
To that end, Waabi has raised $1 billion, including $750 million in an oversubscribed Series C round led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, along with additional capital from Uber specifically tied to robotaxi development. As part of the agreement, Waabi plans to deploy a minimum of 25,000 robotaxis powered by its technology on Uber’s platform. In an interview, Urtasun emphasized that the number of robotaxis is a floor rather than a ceiling.
Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi, on center stage during day one of Web Summit Vancouver 2025. Photo by Vaughn Ridley / Web Summit via Sportsfile via Getty Images
“So massive, massive partnership as you can see here,” she said. “It really brings the next level of scale to the robotaxi market.”
That’s a bold announcement from a startup that has yet to validate its self-driving trucks for commercial operation, let alone deploy a single robotaxi. Urtasun declined to specify the timeline for the deployment, the target markets, or the vehicle platform that Waabi will use for its robotaxis. She did claim, however, that the same technology Waabi uses to automate trucking can also be applied to robotaxis. In trucking, vehicles navigate to specific locations for loading and unloading — similar to passenger pickups and drop-offs. She argues that many of the operational behaviors needed for robotaxis are already part of Waabi’s existing system.
Waabi isn’t the first AV operator to pivot to robotaxis. And it’s not surprising, given the growing excitement around Waymo’s early successes, that investors are putting more money into startups that include a robotaxi plan.
“It really brings the next level of scale to the robotaxi market.”
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