It is early days in the race for the dominance in the autonomous driving space, but Europe has secured an interesting deal this week.

UK autonomous vehicle startup Wayve has raised a $1.05bn Series C round led by new investor SoftBank, also featuring Nvidia and existing backer Microsoft. It brings the startup’s total funding to $1.26bn

Whilst there are obviously a few major players in this space (Alphabet-backed Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise as examples) Wayve has announced a feature of their technology that could become a clear differentiator in the future. The firm has developed a new AI model that helps explain (something that’s seen as key to building public trust in AVs) and determine driving behaviour. It combines a vision model, which makes sense of what the sensors “see”, and a language model, which helps users interact with the technology. 

We at Hyperion follow the mobility space closely and look forward to supporting start ups in this space as well.