Artificial intelligence startup Waabi has raised $200 million in Series B financing, with oversubscriptions. New investors include Nvidia, as well as the venture capital departments of Volvo and Porsche. Urtasun said that her company's system has surprising generalization and unknown processing abilities, with higher training efficiency and verified security.
On June 18th, Caixin reported (Editor Hao Zhao) that Waabi, an artificial intelligence startup, announced on its official website on June 18th local time that it had oversubscribed in its series B financing, raising $200 million in new investment from new investors including NVIDIA, Volvo and Porsche's venture capital department. The press release said that the series B financing was led by Uber and Khosla Ventures, and the new funds brought Waabi's total investment to more than $280 million and would support the company in deploying fully driverless, generative AI-driven autonomous trucks by 2025.
Source: Waabi's official website. Raquel Urtasun, a Canadian scientist who was in charge of Uber's autonomous vehicle development project, founded Waabi in 2021 with headquarters located in Toronto. Waabi claims it is about to achieve level 4 autonomous driving, thanks to the revolutionary way the company "unleashes generative artificial intelligence in the physical world".
According to Waabi, the company has pioneered an end-to-end artificial intelligence system with a human-like reasoning ability and combined it with the most advanced closed-loop simulator in the world, Waabi World, which automatically generates all the possible situations that a car may encounter in the real world to help train models for autonomous driving. In comparison, most other companies need to collect data from vehicles traveling on real roads to train their autonomous driving technology. Urtasun claims that her company's system has astonishing generalization and handling of the unknown, which is more efficient in training and ensures safety.
"The new capital will be used by Waabi to develop its commercial operations and expand its teams in Canada and the United States, including opening new terminals for autonomous truck transport in Texas, integrating NVIDIA DRIVE Thor with Waabi Driver in cooperation with NVIDIA, and providing long-term automated freight services for Uber Freight," Waabi said in a press release.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a press release," We firmly believe that autonomous driving technology can completely change transportation and make the future safer and more sustainable. Raquel is a visionary in the field, and under her leadership, AI-first approach provides a highly exciting solution in terms of scalability and capital efficiency."
NVIDIA founder and CEO Huang Renxun said, "Waabi is developing autonomous trucks by applying cutting-edge generative AI to the physical world." Huang mentioned that Waabi is driven by NVIDIA technology, and that he has been supporting Raquel's pioneering work in AI for more than a decade. "Her perseverance in solving impossible problems is inspiring," he added. Huang also predicted that humanoid robots will become as popular as cars in the future, and that robot technology will make significant progress in the next two to three years.
"It is worth mentioning that when Waabi was founded less than a year ago, Urtasun shared her company's plan to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology through AI and introduced Waabi World at NVIDIA's GTC Digital Spring 2022 conference, at a time when NVIDIA was not as popular as it is now. This year in March, Urtasun participated in NVIDIA GTC 24," it said.
"Trucking accounts for more than 70% of the transportation of goods in the United States. However, in recent years, this industry has been plagued by driver shortages, safety issues and supply chain challenges, many of which can be resolved through automated and other technology-driven solutions," said Waabi, which expects its AI technology to be applied beyond trucking, including humanoid robots and warehouse robots.
Note: Waabi is spelled as "Waab" in the press release.
Huang Renxun mentioned that Waabi is powered by Nvidia technology. 'For more than a decade, I have been supporting Raquel's pioneering work in the field of AI. Her perseverance in solving impossible problems is inspiring.'
Note: The source is NVIDIA's official website.
Note: When Waabi was founded less than a year ago, Urtasun shared her company's plan to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology through AI and introduced "Waabi World" at NVIDIA's GTC Digital Spring 2022 conference. At that time, NVIDIA was not as popular as it is now. This year in March, Urtasun participated in NVIDIA GTC 24.
"Trucking accounts for more than 70% of the transportation of goods in the United States. However, in recent years, this industry has been plagued by driver shortages, safety issues and supply chain challenges, many of which can be resolved through automated and other technology-driven solutions."
Source: Waabi's official website. Huang Renxun predicted that humanoid robots will become as popular as cars in the future, and that robot technology will make significant progress in the next two to three years.
