Wayve, a UK-based autonomous vehicle tech company, has raised USD 1.05 billion in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Group, with participation from NVIDIA and existing investor Microsoft. This brings the company's total funds raised to over USD 1.3 billion.

The company intends to use the funds to develop its autonomous and automated driving technologies and AI-assisted automotive technologies. It also plans to expand its operations globally.

The round ranks the UK’s largest AI fundraiser and features among the top 20 AI fund raises worldwide.

Analyst QuickTake: Wayve is one of the few companies that offers autonomous vehicle technologies for passenger vehicles and last-mile delivery applications; hence, it is featured in our Auto Tech and Last-mile Delivery Automation hubs. With today’s fund raise, Wayve leapfrogs as the second-highest funded privately held company in the Auto Tech space, after US- and China-based autonomous vehicle tech company Pony.ai, which has raised USD 1.33 billion to date. The company has also become the second-highest funded startup in the Last-mile Delivery Automation space after peer autonomous delivery vehicle developer Nuro, which has raised USD 2.1 billion to date.