We launched in 2021 with the mission of building a pathway to autonomous driving at scale. In the short time since, we’ve celebrated numerous milestones, bringing this mission closer to reality than ever before. Today, we’re excited to announce another important milestone in the form of a new partner: Volvo Group Venture Capital (VGVC) has made a strategic investment in Waabi.
We couldn’t be more excited to join the Volvo Group family. The trucking industry is facing unprecedented challenges with driver shortages, increased freight demand, and long transit times. Solving these challenges and shaping the future of scaled autonomous trucking requires best-in-class investors, technology providers, and partners working together to build deeper, more transparent relationships with fleet and shipper customers to ultimately provide the product that meets their needs. As part of this investment, we will work with Volvo Group to explore ways to cooperate and unlock opportunities for global commercialization. Volvo Group will add considerable value through its industry network and strategic outlook to help our business development and accelerate deployment of our autonomous technology.
Importantly, we also share with Volvo Group a core belief and commitment to safety. This is evident through our differentiated approach to autonomy using our groundbreaking AI technology. For example, our revolutionary high-fidelity close loop simulator, Waabi World, uses AI to expose the self-driving “brain” to the vast diversity of experiences needed to sharpen its driving skills, including both common driving scenarios and safety-critical edge cases, significantly reducing the need to drive testing miles in the real world and resulting in a much safer solution that will help us to unlock the potential of self-driving vehicles sooner.
VGVC joins a stellar list of investors who believe wholeheartedly in our approach, including Khosla Ventures, Uber, Radical Ventures, 8VC, OMERS Ventures, BDC, and others.
This investment rounds out a busy year of accomplishments. After debuting Waabi World in early 2022, we recently unveiled the Waabi Driver, our core autonomous trucking solution designed for large-scale commercialization and safe deployment.
Through our groundbreaking AI-first approach, we’re well positioned to support this industry and our partners. With Volvo Group’s backing, we’re starting 2023 with great momentum and palpable excitement. We can’t wait to share with you more fantastic things to come.
For more information about Volvo Group, go to https://www.volvogroup.com/.
