Cofounder, Waabi
Inside Uber’s $250M Robotaxi Deal with Waabi
Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun details her company's $1 billion funding round and new partnership with Uber. She explains how Waabi's "single brain" will power both trucks and taxis.
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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 (19 segments)
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Host0:00
This week, autonomous trucking company Waabi raised $1 billion in new funding. $750 million came from a series C that Coastal Ventures and G2 Venture Partners co-led. The other $250 million will come from Uber, but that amount is a milestone-based capital agreement. Joining me now is Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi. Raquel, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here.
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Raquel Urtasun0:25
Thank you, Cash. Really a pleasure to be here again with you. Excited to talk to you.
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Host0:29
Let's start with the partnership with Uber. How does that partnership work given that you and I have been talking for a couple years? We traditionally thought about Waabi as an autonomous trucking company. Uber doesn't have that many trucks. Talk a little bit of how this works.
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Raquel Urtasun0:47
Yeah, so the vision for Waabi was really to lead the physical AI revolution. From day one we actually built technology that could serve multiple verticals and over the past four and a half years we've been focusing on our first product that was driving trucks. And now that the technology is ready, it is the perfect time for us to actually enter our next vertical which is robo-taxis. And that's where the new partnership with Uber makes total sense because when you think about Uber, it's really the global leader and really the market for robo-taxis. So that's where that additional partnership with Uber actually resides on, enabling us to really enter very quickly, very swiftly, and at a scale with more than 25,000 robo-taxis that we can deploy together on the Uber network, bringing that to the next level of scale that we see today.
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Host1:47
And so are you the software that Waabi has developed, the autonomous driving system, the physical AI system that you're developing, are you installing it in cars that Uber owns? How does this agreement actually work?
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Raquel Urtasun2:06
Yeah, so we will have a single AI system, a single physical AI platform, single brain that will actually drive both robo-taxis as well as trucks. We will be having the software in robo-taxis yet to be announced into which OEM we're going to do this, and then that will be deployed at the scale in the Uber network.
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Host2:31
And this is a separate partnership from Uber's deal with Lucid and with Neuro, that's another lane that they're exploring?
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Raquel Urtasun2:40
Yes, a separate partnership. This is a massive partnership that Uber is doing with Waabi, as you know, the scale of that deployment that we just talked about.
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Host2:50
And then I want to talk about the funding round in a second here broadly, but the $250 million that is milestone-based, what are the milestones that you need to hit to get the full 250 million from Uber?
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Raquel Urtasun3:03
Yeah. Everybody's asking about what that is. So we have simple development milestones that will be achieved very soon by Waabi. Not unveiling more details today. We will be talking about the partnership and other things like which market we will be deploying first etc. soon, but not today. But yeah, they're very, very simple milestones, development milestones.
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Host3:30
Now as it relates to the broader funding round here, so you have a billion dollars in capital, up to a billion dollars. What are you going to be using the money for? And specifically, I want to ask you about how you're collecting the data because last time we had you on the show, you were talking about some of the simulation technology you were playing with. What's on the roadmap for you?
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Raquel Urtasun3:52
Yeah. So, we're going to use the 1 billion of capital to really double down on our trucking product, and really bring that to commercialization at the scale and then also into expanding into the new vertical. And what is super capital efficient, right? So a billion dollars of new capital basically for us, think of it as infinite capital. So there is a lot that we can really accomplish with this and I think we are, if you look at trucking for example, we are the most stable player in the industry by a totally different dimension I will say. So this gives us definitely the peace of mind and the ability to really focus on what we do best which is executing on milestones that are extremely ambitious but we always hit in time and under budget, which really defines who we are as a company. Whenever we say that we do something we actually truly deliver always.
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Host4:58
And the business model for Waabi, you have these deals with Uber, with OEMs as well for the trucking division. How are these deals structured? Do they pay you a certain amount for each car or truck that they're installing the system on?
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Raquel Urtasun5:17
Yeah. So on the trucking side, we have a similar business model to what the industry has kind of adopted, which is driver as a service. This is typically pay on a per mile basis. And for the robo-taxi side, more details to come soon. But I think it's important to know that we are a technology company, so we will not be the ones operating a large fleet of self-driving trucks or a large fleet of robo-taxis either.
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Host5:55
And so I'm just imagining here. I mean, in terms of your own business, if it's per mile and based on distance, how quickly is revenue growing for Waabi right now?
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Raquel Urtasun6:06
So when you think about the revenue projections, there's really a hockey stick that happens once the OEM is the fully redundant platform is ready and can be produced at the scale, the factory line. And the opportunity of revenue per truck, per robo-taxi is massive. So that's what Waabi is doing since day one, is really built to scale. That's where for us has been very important to really vertically integrate with an OEM so that the moment that the product is ready then you hit that massive hockey stick. And what we really hear from the customers is that on the trucking side they are really ready to adopt this technology. It's not anymore like a few years ago in terms of will this actually be the technology that is interesting or not interesting for my business. What we hear is how many and where can you actually deploy. And one thing that I think is important also to say is that Waabi has a very differentiated business model which is that we can go direct to customer. What does that mean is that instead of using a hub-and-spoke model that the rest of the industry needs to utilize because they cannot drive in generalized surface streets, for us since we have the liability with the superior AI technology then basically we can go from the customer end facility to the other endpoint and basically move freight the same as is done traditionally with humans. And for the customers this is a massive product differentiation. This is really for the first time addressing their pain points. And that actually has had tremendous reception within the customers in terms of this is really the product we want to buy.
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Host8:06
Right. Last question for you. You raised a billion. Can you tell us what the valuation is?
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Raquel Urtasun8:12
Not today. Not today. As you can imagine, it's pretty healthy and it's exciting, but more to come.
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Host8:17
Well, I want to thank you for coming on the show and congrats on the funding round. And when you have more to tell us about the partnership with Uber and about the robo-taxi systems, come back on the show and talk to us more about it. That is Raquel Urtasun, the founder and CEO of Waabi here on TIV.