UK-based self-driving tech startup Wayve announced on Tuesday that it has secured USD 1.05 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank Group. 

This funding will be used to speed up the development and launch of production-model vehicles of Wayve’s Embodied AI technology. 

The technology is designed to learn from and adapt to human behaviour. Nvidia, a new investor, and existing investor Microsoft also contributed to the Series C funding round.

This funding marks the largest investment yet in a UK startup focused on AI technology. Wayve’s total funds raised now stand at just over USD 1.3 billion.

Wayve, founded in 2017, uses autonomous driving technology that leverages AI to navigate situations that do not follow strict patterns or rules. This includes unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians or environmental elements. 

The startup’s technology is currently integrated into six different vehicle platforms, including electric vehicles like the Jaguar I-PACE and Ford Mustang MachE as part of advanced driver assistance systems.

As autonomous technology advances, Wayve’s AI will be upgraded using over-the-air software updates.

The biggest challenge for self-driving companies is developing vehicles that can truly drive themselves. Wayve President Erez Dagan said the company’s technology is built to generalise its driving knowledge from one scenario to another because it’s nearly impossible to imagine every situation that a self-driving car needs to handle reliably. 

By leveraging the raw power of AI, they can build an Embodied AI system that’s learned from real-world and synthetic data how to handle edge cases at a rate that surpasses human programming.

In a statement, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed the funding round as “a testament to our leadership in this industry, and that our plan for the (UK) economy is working.”