What is Waymo?
Alphabet's autonomous-driving company and the largest commercial robotaxi operator in the U.S.
- Category
- Autonomous Vehicles / Robotaxi
- Headquarters
- Mountain View, California
- Founded
- 2009 (Waymo since 2016)
- Employees
- ~4,000
- Total funding
- ~$27B external
- Valuation
- $126B (Feb 2026)
What is Waymo?
Waymo is the autonomous-driving company owned by Alphabet (Google's parent) and the largest commercial robotaxi operator in the United States. Its Waymo One service runs fully driverless, app-hailed rides across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Miami — completing 500,000+ paid rides per week by early 2026 and reaching roughly $355M in annualized revenue by February 2026.
Waymo builds the full stack of self-driving technology — the lidar, camera, and radar sensor suite, the on-vehicle compute, and the 'Waymo Driver' AI software — and operates it as a vertically integrated ride-hailing service rather than selling the technology to others. Riders book through the Waymo One app much like Uber or Lyft, but no human driver is present; the company manages its own fleet of roughly 3,000 vehicles, today mostly Jaguar I-PACE running fifth-gen hardware, now being augmented by the Zeekr-built 'Ojai' minivan on sixth-generation hardware and a multi-year Hyundai Ioniq 5 deal (up to 50,000 vehicles by 2028).
The business scaled dramatically through 2025 and into 2026: weekly paid rides roughly tripled (from ~175,000 to 500,000+), annual ride volume reached about 15 million, and revenue grew from $125M (end-2024) to ~$284M (end-2025) to a ~$355M run-rate in early 2026. Management is targeting 1 million weekly rides by the end of 2026, which would push the annual run-rate toward ~$1.6B at current pricing.
Waymo is the clear category leader in a heating market — well ahead of Amazon's Zoox and Tesla on commercial driverless scale — and is now expanding to 20+ U.S. cities and, for the first time, internationally to London and Tokyo. In February 2026 it raised $16B at a $126B valuation to fund that expansion, more than doubling the ~$45B valuation it carried just over a year earlier.
What does Waymo offer?
Waymo's core product is the Waymo One driverless ride-hailing service, powered by the Waymo Driver autonomous system, with a new Premier subscription and emerging freight and licensing lines.
- Waymo One (robotaxi ride-hailing)· Core product
- Waymo Driver (autonomous system)· Core technology
- Waymo Premier ($29.99/mo membership)· Subscription
- 6th-gen hardware (cameras, lidar, radar)· Hardware
- Uber app integration / distribution· Partnerships
- Waymo Via / freight (autonomous trucking, R&D)· Adjacent
- Waymo Open Dataset· Research
- Driver licensing (potential)· Future
How does Waymo make money?
Waymo makes money primarily on per-ride fares from its Waymo One robotaxi service, charging riders directly through its app (and via Uber in some markets), with a new $29.99/month Premier subscription layered on top.
The unit is the ride. Waymo's average revenue per ride is roughly $15–17, priced to sit about 15% below comparable Uber/Lyft trips in overlapping markets — competitive on price while it owns the entire margin stream (there is no human driver to pay). Fares are dynamic, like other ride-hailing, varying by distance, time and demand, and the company has signaled that average fares could rise as longer freeway and airport trips come online.
In June 2026 Waymo launched Premier, a $29.99/month membership (invite-only to start in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix) that gives priority matching, 10% back in Waymo Cash credits, up to five free cancellations a month, and early access in new cities — a recurring-revenue and loyalty layer on top of pay-per-ride. Distribution partnerships (notably Uber, which lists Waymo vehicles in some cities) extend reach, while fleet-management partners such as Moove handle depot operations and vehicle upkeep.
Growth is driven by three levers: adding cities (six commercial markets today, 20+ planned plus London and Tokyo), increasing fleet size (~3,000 vehicles and climbing toward 3,500+), and raising utilization per vehicle. Because each driverless car can run many paid trips a day, ride volume — not headcount — scales revenue, which is why management ties the path to a ~$1.6B run-rate to hitting 1 million weekly rides. The model is capital-intensive (fully-equipped vehicles cost well above $100,000), which is what the $16B raise funds.
Who leads Waymo?
Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana (business and operations) and Dmitri Dolgov (technology), a structure in place since 2021. It originated as a Google project led by Sebastian Thrun and operates as an Alphabet subsidiary.
- Tekedra MawakanaCo-CEOCo-CEO since 2021; joined 2017Leads business, operations, policy and commercialization; prior policy/legal roles at AOL, Yahoo and eBay; one of few Black women leading a major U.S. tech company.
- Dmitri DolgovCo-CEO & CTOCo-CEO since 2021; joined 2009Leads technology; an original engineer on Google's self-driving project, previously at Stanford and the Toyota Research Institute.
- Sebastian ThrunFounder, Google Self-Driving Car ProjectFounding (2009)Stanford professor and DARPA Grand Challenge winner who launched the project that became Waymo; later founded Udacity.
- Sundar PichaiCEO, Alphabet (Waymo's parent)Alphabet CEO since 2019Oversees Waymo as part of Alphabet's 'Other Bets'; sets capital allocation for the company's robotaxi investment.
How do you contact Waymo's leadership?
Waymo's only published address is press@waymo.com for media. Personal addresses follow the verified firstinitiallast@waymo.com pattern (e.g. jdoe@waymo.com), with firstlast@waymo.com also common — the leadership emails below are formatted to that pattern, not individually published, so treat them as best-effort, not confirmed.
jdoe@waymo.comHow much funding has Waymo raised?
Waymo has raised roughly $27B across external rounds since 2020, on top of an estimated ~$30B in lifetime Alphabet investment. Its most recent round was $16B in February 2026, setting a $126B post-money valuation — more than double the ~$45B mark from October 2024.
Before opening to outside capital, Waymo was funded entirely by Alphabet; Wolfe Research has estimated Alphabet poured roughly $30B into the company over its lifetime. External fundraising began in March 2020 with a $2.25B first external round led by Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Mubadala, with Andreessen Horowitz, Magna and AutoNation also participating — extended to $3.2B by July 2020. In June 2021 Waymo raised a second external round of $2.5B from Alphabet and existing investors including Silver Lake, a16z, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.
In October 2024 Waymo closed a $5.6B Series C led by Alphabet (with Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price), which valued the company above $45B. Then in February 2026 — after talks first reported in December 2025 — it closed a $16B Series D led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital, with Mubadala Capital, a16z, Bessemer, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price also in. That round set the $126B post-money valuation, making Waymo one of the most heavily capitalized private companies in the world.
The near-tripling of valuation from $45B to $126B in roughly 15 months tracks the commercial inflection: weekly paid rides growing past 500,000, ~15 million annual rides, and revenue climbing from $125M to a ~$355M run-rate. The 2026 capital is explicitly earmarked for fleet expansion, new U.S. cities, and the first international launches in London and Tokyo.
How did Waymo get here?
From a secretive Google moonshot in 2009 to a $126B robotaxi leader running 500,000+ paid rides a week across six U.S. markets.
- 2009Google Self-Driving Car Project foundedLaunched inside Google X, led by Sebastian Thrun; logs its first autonomous miles on public roads.
- Mar 2020First external funding round$2.25B led by Silver Lake, CPP Investments and Mubadala (extended to $3.2B by July 2020).
- Dec 2016Spun out and rebranded as WaymoBecomes an independent Alphabet subsidiary; name stands for 'a new way forward in mobility.'
- Oct 2020First fully driverless public ride-hailingWaymo One opens driverless rides to the general public in metro Phoenix — an industry first.
- Oct 2024$5.6B Series C at $45B+ valuationLed by Alphabet with a16z, Fidelity, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.
- Feb 2026$16B Series D at $126B valuationLed by Dragoneer, DST Global and Sequoia; funds 20+ U.S. cities plus London and Tokyo expansion.
Who are Waymo's competitors?
Waymo competes with other robotaxi and autonomous-driving operators — chiefly Tesla, Amazon's Zoox, and Chinese players Baidu Apollo Go, Pony.ai and WeRide — plus the broader Uber/Lyft ride-hailing market it undercuts on price.
- Tesla (Robotaxi)Camera-only 'Full Self-Driving' approach launched in Austin and the Bay Area in 2025, but still largely supervised — far behind Waymo on commercial driverless scale.
- Zoox (Amazon)Amazon-owned; purpose-built bidirectional pods (no steering wheel) rather than retrofitted cars; launching on Uber in Las Vegas and L.A. in 2026–27.
- Baidu Apollo GoChina's largest robotaxi operator by volume, dominant in Chinese cities — the closest global rival on scale, though outside the U.S.
- Pony.aiU.S.-listed Chinese AV company running robotaxis in Beijing, Guangzhou and elsewhere; commercializing fast but smaller fleet.
- WeRidePublicly traded Chinese AV firm with robotaxi and robobus operations across multiple countries; broader vehicle types, smaller paid-ride volume.
- Uber / LyftHuman-driver ride-hailing incumbents Waymo prices ~15% under; also a distribution partner — frenemies as Waymo lists on the Uber app in some cities.
Waymo — frequently asked questions
