Waabi secures CAD$1 Billion in new funding to lead Physical AI revolution
“Toronto, your Waabi will be arriving shortly.”
Named after the Japanese word for “simple,” Toronto-based autonomous-vehicle startup Waabi just achieved the largest funding round in the history of Canada’s technology sector as it aims to accelerate the development of its physical AI platform, boost efforts to commercialize self-driving trucks, and enter the robotaxi market—via Uber’s platform—with plans to deploy a minimum of 25,000 autonomous vehicles on Uber’s ride-hailing service
Toronto, ON (Jan. 28, 2026) – Waabi, the leader in Physical AI, is pleased to announce it has closed its oversubscribed $750M USD Series C round co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, and secured an additional milestone-based future investment from Uber to support a new partnership to deploy robotaxis powered by the Waabi Driver exclusively on the Uber platform. The funding, the largest fundraise in Canadian history, will fuel the continued advancement of Waabi’s Physical AI Platform, further accelerate the company’s commercial progress in autonomous trucking, and support Waabi’s expansion into robotaxis.
Founded in 2021, Waabi has quickly ascended from industry upstart to leader in Physical AI. The company’s revolutionary Physical AI Platform enables true scale, generalizing to different form factors, geographies, and environments. Waabi’s Platform combines a verifiable end-to-end AI model capable of reasoning alongside the world’s most advanced neural simulator. This approach enables — for the first time in the industry — a shared brain across both autonomous trucks and robotaxis, in which the same AI model powers both applications. Waabi’s breakthrough unlocks a rapid and seamless expansion into robotaxis, while ensuring that progress in both autonomous trucks and robotaxis ultimately improves the Waabi Driver’s overall capabilities.
“Waabi’s Physical AI Platform has enabled us to hit an industry-leading pace in the development and commercialization of autonomous trucks over the past few years,” said Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi. “Our current self-driving capabilities across highways and generalized surface streets have unlocked a new direct-to-customer model that for the first time solves the pain points of the industry, and provides an unprecedented opportunity to quickly and seamlessly enter the robotaxi market, delivering a truly scalable solution for both verticals.”
Waabi’s Series C
Waabi’s $750M USD Series C round includes participation from global leaders in AI, transportation, and the Canadian ecosystem. In addition to the lead investors, Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, Waabi’s Series C includes participation from strategic investors, such as Uber, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Volvo Group Venture Capital, and Porsche Automobil Holding SE, as well as financial investors: funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Radical Ventures, HarbourVest Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (“ADIA”), Linse Capital, Incharge Capital, and others. The company’s Series C raise also includes the participation of best-in-class Canadian investors: BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, Export Development Canada (EDC), TELUS Global Ventures, BMO Global Asset Management, and others.
“We invest in the companies that are leading the AI era. Waabi has developed a truly groundbreaking Physical AI platform that represents a fundamental leap forward in how next generation driverless technology is being developed,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures”. Their remarkable progress in autonomous trucking and rapid expansion into robotaxis demonstrates how their technology unlocks for the first time true scale in the real world. This breakthrough will define AI for decades to come.”
“Waabi is fundamentally changing the trajectory of autonomous transportation, said Brook Porter, Partner and Co-Founder at G2 Venture Partners. “Their simulation-first end-to-end AI is a powerful enabler, accelerating commercial adoption while dramatically reducing capital needs to scale. Waabi is unlocking the potential for autonomy to drive vehicle efficiency and utilization, catalyzing the shift to a more sustainable transportation system.”
“With a trillion miles driven globally each year, self-driving is one of the largest and most important AI opportunities of our time,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Waabi represents a true breakthrough by treating autonomy as a scalable intelligence problem. Built on NVIDIA compute, Waabi is unlocking real deployment—and we’re proud to support them as one of the future giants of AI.”
The Waabi–Uber Partnership
Building on the progress and maturity of Waabi’s autonomous trucking offering, the company is launching its second application of Physical AI: robotaxis. “We are thrilled to partner with the best-in-class ridesharing platform to bring about a safer, more efficient, and sustainable future,” said Urtasun.
With Waabi’s expansion into robotaxis, the company is exclusively partnering with Uber to deploy robotaxis powered by the Waabi Driver on the Uber platform. As part of this strategic partnership, Uber will invest additional milestone-based capital to support the development of Waabi’s robotaxis and the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis over time, substantially accelerating the adoption of robotaxis at scale.
“Waabi’s expanded focus on robotaxis marks an important milestone for their team and the AV industry more broadly,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “We’re very excited to deepen our partnership with Waabi as they significantly scale their Physical AI Platform and enter a new phase of an already remarkable journey.”
About Waabi
Waabi is pioneering Physical AI – starting with autonomous trucks. AI visionary Raquel Urtasun founded Waabi in 2021 with an unwavering belief that Physical AI could revolutionize how humanity moves and connects. Today, Waabi is a global force pioneering a breakthrough approach that demonstrates autonomous vehicles can be scalable, efficient, and safe.
Behind every breakthrough at Waabi are people who care deeply about reshaping the physical world through diverse perspectives, from AI researchers and roboticists to trucking experts and operators. Our approach to Physical AI has earned the backing of world-class investors – including BDC, EDC, BMO, Uber, Nvidia, Volvo, BlackRock, and Porsche SE – who share our vision for efficient, safe, and scalable autonomous solutions. For more information, visit www.waabi.ai.
SOURCE: Waabi
Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Autonomous Vehicles, funding, Internet of Things (IoT), seed funding, Telematics, Truck, Uber