Autonomous trucking startup Waabi said Wednesday that it has raised $750 million in funding as it enters into a partnership to deploy driverless systems in light duty vehicles for Uber robotaxi services.
Waabi's series C round is led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, the startup announced Wednesday. The deal is one of the largest single rounds ever raised by a Canadian tech startup.
Ranking 35 on CNBC's 2025 Disruptor 50 list, Waabi is based in Toronto with some operations in Texas.
Founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun told CNBC the new funding will enable the company to adapt its "physical AI" to develop driverless systems that can be made to work in new locations, conditions and form factors with a high level of safety relatively quickly.
In addition to Waabi's series C, Uber has committed to invest $250 million into the startup based on future milestones. With Uber's additional funding, Waabi will exclusively deploy at least 25,000 autonomous vehicles via the ridehail platform. Urtasun was previously a chief scientist at Uber's Advanced Technologies Group that worked on AV technology.
"For me, it's been 16 years in self-driving," she said. "But this is — it's finally here, scale is here. And the next couple of years, it's going to be amazing."
Waabi has not yet revealed the vehicle models that will feature its systems.
The startup previously developed driverless, trailer-hauling trucks made in partnership with automakers Volvo and, before that, Peterbilt. While Waabi has operated a fleet of its own driverless trucks to haul customers' cargo, it is now shifting to a "driver as a service" business model, said Urtasun, who is also a full professor of computer science at the University of Toronto.