Meet Raquel Urtasun, the Visionary Behind Waabi: A Toronto AV Startup Gains Traction with Support from Uber, Khosla, Nvidia, Porsche, and IKEA
Toronto-based autonomous vehicle (AV) startup Waabi, led by Canadian AI expert Raquel Urtasun, has secured a massive $275 million ($200 million) in Series B funding. This major cash infusion will fuel Waabi’s ambitious plan to launch fully driverless trucks in 2025, powered by cutting-edge generative AI.
The funding round, which closed recently, was led by ride-hailing giant Uber and venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, both San Francisco-based and already investors in Waabi. Joining them are new strategic backers like Nvidia, Porsche, and IKEA’s investment arm, Ingka Investments. The excitement around Waabi’s progress is palpable, with Urtasun expressing her enthusiasm about the company's current position and prospects.
Founded three years ago with $100 million in Series A funding, Waabi aims to revolutionize long-haul trucking. This sector faces significant challenges such as labor shortages, safety concerns, and supply chain issues. With the new funding, Waabi plans to achieve Level 4 autonomy, removing drivers from its trucks and starting commercial deliveries in Texas next year.
Raquel Urtasun, formerly Uber’s chief scientist and head of its self-driving unit, launched Waabi with a vision to transform the AV industry. The company has made rapid strides, unveiling its AI brain (Waabi Driver) and simulator (Waabi World), partnering with industry giants like Uber Freight and Nvidia, and commencing road testing in Texas. Despite challenging market conditions, Waabi’s unique approach to self-driving and its swift progress have attracted substantial investment.
Waabi’s Series B round also saw participation from Export Development Canada, transportation-focused Scania, Boston’s HarbourVest Partners, California’s G2 Venture Partners, and German mobility VC firm Incharge Capital Partners. Existing investors like BDC Capital, Volvo’s venture arm, and Toronto AI investor Radical Ventures also reinvested.
“We have an incredible roster of investors,” Urtasun noted. With this funding, she believes Waabi is well on its way to building a robust ecosystem of partners across computing, AI, automotive, and logistics, ensuring the company’s financial stability and paving the way for large-scale self-driving adoption.
To date, Waabi has raised over $389 million. The company’s backers include notable names like AV company Aurora, OMERS Ventures, and AI experts Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel, and Sanja Fidler. While Urtasun did not disclose Waabi’s valuation, she confirmed that the Series B funding came at an exciting figure, marking an upround from the Series A.
Michelle Scarborough, managing partner at BDC Capital’s WIT and Thrive Venture Fund, expressed confidence in Waabi’s potential to disrupt and lead the industry. “We doubled down because we’re super impressed with everything they have accomplished since 2021. They made all of their milestones and then some,” Scarborough said. She credited Urtasun’s leadership, the team’s strength, and Waabi’s “generative AI-first approach” as key factors in their success, contrasting it with competitors' more hardware-focused strategies.
Developing AVs has traditionally been expensive, difficult to scale, and fraught with safety concerns. The industry has seen slow progress, dangerous incidents, and economic challenges, which Urtasun referred to as a “winter of AV.” Despite this, Waabi is betting on “AV 2.0,” a strategy that emphasizes generative AI and comes with its own set of challenges. Urtasun believes that generative AI will revolutionize robotics and self-driving.
Waabi’s innovative approach involves using its simulator, Waabi World, to train its AI brain before it hits the road, a method Urtasun argues is safer, cheaper, and more scalable than traditional road testing. This virtual training allows Waabi’s AI to be honed both in real-time and through simulation, a unique capability that Scarborough identifies as the company’s competitive edge.
Urtasun, who is also a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto and co-founder of the Toronto AI research hub Vector Institute, has dedicated her career to developing new AI technologies and applying them to real-world problems. She sees this funding round as a significant milestone for Waabi, the AV industry, and Canada’s tech sector. Urtasun hopes that Waabi’s success will inspire more Canadian tech entrepreneurs to take bold risks and drive transformative change.
Scarborough is optimistic about Waabi’s future, believing the company has a great opportunity to compete on the global stage. With its innovative approach and strong leadership, Waabi is poised to make a significant impact in the self-driving tech sector.
