Wayve offers employees $85 million equity sale at $8.5 billion valuation

Wayve is letting employees sell part of their vested equity in an $85 million tender offer. Wayve’s existing and new investors are leading the sale, which values the company at $8.5 billion, a level that sits just below the $8.6 billion post-money valuation Wayve set in its February financing.

The move is Wayve’s second employee liquidity event, following a tender offer alongside its $1.05 billion Series C round in May 2024.

Wayve’s latest financing came on February 25, 2026, when it raised $1.2 billion in Series D capital as part of a $1.5 billion package to accelerate deployment of its autonomy platform. Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round, with Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures and Schroders Capital also participating. Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber joined the round as well.

Headcount has more than doubled to 1,200 employees over the past year. Wayve will launch commercial robotaxi trials with Uber in 2026 and plans to begin integrating its AI software into Nissan’s next-generation driver-assist systems in 2027. In May, Wayve announced a strategic technology partnership with Stellantis for hands-free door-to-door supervised automated driving, and on June 17, Wayve, Stellantis and Uber said they would explore developing and deploying Level 4 robotaxis globally.

Founded in 2017, Wayve has built its pitch around end-to-end, self-learning embodied AI that does not rely on pre-built high-definition maps. Wayve has tested zero-shot driving in more than 500 cities across Europe, North America and Japan. It has also deepened its investor base this year, including a $60 million investment from AMD, Arm and Qualcomm in April and a partnership with the UK government in May to accelerate self-driving development in Britain.