TORONTO — Waabi has raised US$750 million in new financing as it extends its physical AI technology from autonomous trucks into robotaxis via an expanded partnership with Uber. 

The all-equity round, one of the largest ever for a private Canadian technology company, was led by Silicon Valley funds Khosla Ventures, which led its previous fundraise, and G2 Venture Partners. Other returning backers for the Series C include Uber, chip giant Nvidia’s venture arm, automakers Porsche and Volvo, as well as Radical Ventures and HarbourVest, and the federal agencies Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada. New investors include telecom Telus’s venture arm and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Founded in 2021, Toronto-based Waabi has developed AI models that can control large objects, like vehicles, in the real world. “If you look at our technology, when I started, it was very contrarian,” CEO Raquel Urtasun said in an interview last June. Rather than try to build separate models one by one to control different vehicle functions, Waabi bet on developing an end-to-end system that could handle all aspects of autonomous driving. 

It also took a different approach to training its technology by developing its own simulation software. “We will never drive enough to see all the things in the world,” Urtasun said. Waabi instead tries to simulate the physical environments in which vehicles might operate, allowing it to train its model on many different conditions and test how it will react.

Those bets have allowed 250-person Waabi to advance its technology and keep attracting new capital even as other self-driving efforts like General Motors’s Cruise robotaxis or Embark Technologies’ autonomous trucking systems faltered due to safety or financial issues. 

Waabi claims its system can now pilot a truck on both highways and regular streets without needing a human driver, removing the need for handoffs between autonomous lorries doing long-hauls and regular vans for local transport and delivery. It’s already on the road via Uber Freight, the ride-hailing firm’s logistics service. 

The new robotaxi tie-up expands Waabi’s work with Uber, where Urtasun was previously chief scientist for self-driving. Riders will eventually be able to hail cars controlled by Waabi’s software via the Uber app, with plans for up to 25,000 vehicles. That will put the two firms in direct competition with Alphabet’s Waymo and Tesla, which are already rolling out robotaxis in some U.S. cities.

Waabi’s latest financing is especially significant for a firm at such an early age and stage. Clio, the Vancouver-based legaltech firm, raised US$900 million in July 2024, breaking the record that Toronto-based 1Password set with a US$620 million Series C in January 2022. Top AI startups, particularly those led by star researchers like Urtasun, are raising huge rounds at launch or in quick succession as investors flood into the sector.

The Globe and Mail first reported in December that Waabi was close to completing the financing.

Waabi previously raised a US$200-million Series B led by Khosla and Uber in June 2024. Urtasun launched the firm with a US$83.5-million Series A in June 2021. “In self-driving, you need quite a bit of capital,” she said last July, claiming that Waabi has burned much less cash than competitors to advance its technology to the point where it’s useful. “Once you manage to build driverless, [that’s] when the hockey stick of revenue happens,” Urtasun said.

Physical AI systems are also being used in applications beyond vehicles like robotics. Waabi’s technology “generalizes to different form factors, geographies, and environments, and is proven in autonomous trucking,” Urtasun said Tuesday, adding that it “could be applied to other verticals” in the future.

Waabi declined to comment on its valuation, but corporate filings suggest that the new round represents a significant increase. Waabi’s Series C equity was at a price of US$11.8 per share, compared to US$3.6 per share at its Series B.