Cofounder, Waabi
'Working with regulators in order to make it possible': Waabi CEO on autonomous vehicles in Canada
Raquel Urtasun, CEO & founder of Waabi, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the company's development of AI for autonomous trucks and robotaxis.
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About Raquel Urtasun
Raquel Urtasun, co-founder and CEO of Waabi, has been active in discussing the company's autonomous vehicle technology and recent developments. In a keynote at the CVPR 2026 WDFM-EAI Workshop in Denver, Urtasun emphasized the importance of generalization in autonomous systems, stating that they must handle dynamic situations not previously observed. She described Waabi's approach of using a single "brain" or autonomous system that can operate across different vehicle form factors, including self-driving trucks and robotaxis. Urtasun also noted that Waabi has raised a billion dollars in funding and announced a partnership with Uber to deploy a minimum of 25,000 robotaxis. In an interview with Osler, Urtasun discussed Waabi's journey and its landmark US $1 billion financing round, which she described as one of the largest in Canadian history. She attributed the company's success to its differentiated technology, capital efficiency, and a focus on safety. Urtasun stated that Waabi's physical AI platform can drive multiple form factors, calling it a "massive accelerator" for entering the robotaxi market. She also highlighted the importance of "grit" for founders, noting that startups involve ups and downs and require perseverance. Urtasun expressed optimism about Canada's opportunity to lead in physical AI, which she described as "the new thing" beyond digital AI.
Transcript (17 segments)
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Host0:00
Autonomous vehicle company Waabi is claiming more than a billion dollars in investment funding this week, including a new deal with Uber to power robotaxis with its technology. Here to talk about plans for the new funding is the founder, Raquel Urtasun. Raquel, thank you very much for joining us.
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Raquel Urtasun0:19
Thank you for having me.
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Host0:21
The funding you've got up to a billion dollars. Where is that going? What is the aim now with this money?
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Raquel Urtasun0:30
Yeah. So with this funding we are going to really double down on our self-driving trucking business and then on top of this we are actually expanding to our next vertical which is robotaxi.
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Host0:42
And two very distinct things. Let's talk a little bit trucking. That's the one that you've really focused on. Have you had successes with it? How close are we to seeing them on the road?
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Raquel Urtasun0:54
Yeah. So we've been, you know, we are the leader really globally on self-driving trucking which is really exciting to be doing this from Canada. And since 2023 we've been doing commercial operations in the US in Texas where you can really see our self-driving vehicles driving freight for some of the biggest shippers and carriers in North America. And now the company is really ready for entering the next market because our autonomy system is really performant, is ready for driverless. And what is really exciting about the technology we have is that the same brain, the same AI system is going to drive both robotaxis as well as driving trucks which is for the first time in the industry enabling us to really have a very fast and seamless entry into the robotaxi market.
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Host1:55
All right, Gavin, do you want to join the conversation?
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Gavin1:58
Yes. Just to say obviously you're operating very successfully in the States. Do you have any plans to come to Canada? Is the market more open to using autonomous vehicles? More receptive, shall we say?
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Raquel Urtasun2:14
Yeah. Fantastic question. Definitely I would love to bring this technology to Canada. Obviously it's a smaller market than the US but I think the key differentiator here is that the regulatory framework in the US is way ahead of Canada. That being said we are working with the regulators in order to make it possible for us to safely deploy the technology here as well. So definitely is our intention to come here as soon as we can.
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Host2:42
And now let's go back to let's talk about the taxis now, the robotaxis. Uber, you worked for them, did that help with this work, this deal out? And will it be easier to integrate your technology with them because of that?
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Raquel Urtasun2:59
Yeah, so we announced a massive deal with Uber, right? We're going to be deploying more than 25,000 robotaxis on the Uber network. So definitely bringing robotaxis globally to the next level of scale. And I will say that Uber has been an investor in Waabi from day one. They invested in our Series A, they co-led our Series B, now they also invested in our Series C. And they have really seen what our technology can do. And what you see with this massive robotaxi deal is their excitement and they are tripling down in terms of really being the provider for the Uber network that can really bring robotaxis to the next level. Now the fact that I worked at Uber before doesn't necessarily, it's like tertiary I will say in terms of the reasons why they invested. First because of our technology that they have been seeing over the last four and a half years and then there is obviously knowledge of the board, etc., in terms of knowing personally myself as well as our CEO Lior over the last decade.
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Host4:11
Now and are you playing catch-up when it, I mean Waymo is out there, are you playing catch-up with them or do you think you can catch them?
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Raquel Urtasun4:21
So we definitely believe that we can catch everybody in the industry, right? And it's all about, we have a very differentiated technology that is a big advantage. We have the next generation of tech that can really enable us to swiftly and really efficiently come into the robotaxi market. And it's a massive market, right? $1 trillion dollars in the US alone. So definitely there is more than enough space for Waabi to have a big market share in the years to come. So we feel very, very confident and with this partnership with Uber we have all it takes to really deploy the technology there. And I think it's worth mentioning as well that unlike the rest of the industry in self-driving trucking, our trucks today have the ability to drive on surface streets, on urban environments. And so we already have all the core capabilities for robotaxis as well. So all this together make for us a no-brainer that now that our self-driving technology is ready for trucks to really enter this new market.
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Host5:35
I just want to sneak in one more question then I'll let Gavin have the last question. You call it teacher-student architecture for the driving. Is that what makes it different than other companies?
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Raquel Urtasun5:46
So we have the only verifiable end-to-end system that is capable of reasoning and what this does is two things. One is that we can actually prove that the system is safe while being able to utilize the full power of AI. And the system through reasoning really generalizes to things it has never seen before and is able to learn extremely efficiently. So this together with our simulator, which is, you know, we built the metaverse for self-driving, which is the best simulator in the industry, enable us to teach the system and test the system to perform better than humans in any situation including unavoidable accidents, any safety-critical situation on the road. So this technology advantage really has propelled Waabi. We started the company only four and a half years ago and our system is really already ready to drive, super performant, right? And we are ready for the next stage and the next vertical as I said, robotaxis. And you will hear more about our plans of when we are entering the market, roadmaps, etc. But what I can share with you today is this is going to be much faster than anybody believes.
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Host7:06
Okay. We're out of time but Raquel, thank you very much for joining us today.
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Raquel Urtasun7:13
A pleasure being here today. Raquel Urtasun is founder of Waabi.