Autonomous vehicles: what’s funding like now?

All funding deals in the autonomous vehicle market over the last 24 months

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the Autonomous Vehicle Market.

Is autonomous vehicle funding actually healthier now?

Autonomous vehicle funding looks healthier at the top end today, while the rest of the market still looks tight.

We counted 21 financings in the latest 12-month period, down from 23 a year earlier, yet the number of funded companies edged up from 17 to 18. The much bigger change happened in round size: disclosed capital went from roughly $7.16B to at least $20.15B, while the median financing jumped from $33.8M to $81.45M.

Those headline numbers hide a split market. Capital in rounds of $50M or less increased 66.5%, which shows some improvement outside the giant deals. Once we remove every financing above $100M, however, the current period contains $468.2M versus $597.0M previously, a 21.6% drop.

So the companies that can raise serious growth capital are having a much better year. Smaller and mid-sized fundraising has been much less convincing.

Metric	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
Deals	21	23	-8.7%
Unique funded companies	18	17	+5.9%
Disclosed capital	≥$20.15B	~$7.16B	≥+181%
Median disclosed round	$81.45M	$33.8M	+141%
Capital excluding >$50M rounds	$245.3M	$147.3M	+66.5%
Capital excluding >$100M rounds	$468.2M	$597.0M	-21.6%
First financings	3	3	No change
Strategic participation	71.4%	60.9%	+10.5 pp

Did autonomous vehicle funding really triple, or is Waymo doing the heavy lifting?

Waymo does most of the heavy lifting, although the current autonomous vehicle funding cycle still looks stronger after we strip out its giant round.

Waymo's $16B financing represents 79.4% of current disclosed capital. A year earlier, its $5.6B round represented 78.3%. Concentration at the very top has barely changed.

There is still real improvement underneath. Remove the largest round from each period and we are left with at least $4.15B today versus roughly $1.56B previously. Remove the three largest disclosed rounds and the comparison is still about $2.20B versus $0.84B.

The catch is lower down the funding curve. Taking every deal above $100M out of the calculation turns the headline surge into a 21.6% decline. The market has become much better at producing very large rounds without creating the same improvement across ordinary sub-$100M financings.

Concentration test	Current 12M	Previous 12M
All disclosed capital	≥$20.15B	~$7.16B
Capital after removing largest deal	≥$4.15B	~$1.56B
Capital after removing top 3 disclosed deals	≥$2.20B	~$0.84B
Largest financing	$16B	$5.6B
Largest deal share	79.4%	78.3%
Top 3 capital share	89.1%	88.3%
Top 5 capital share	93.6%	91.7%
Deals above $100M	9	5

Are more autonomous vehicle startups getting funded now, or are investors sticking with familiar names?

A few more autonomous vehicle companies are getting funded today, but the flow of brand-new funded startups has barely moved.

We found 18 funded companies in the current period versus 17 previously, even though total transactions declined from 23 to 21. That gives the market slightly more company breadth than a year ago.

The entry point remains narrow. Only three current financings went to companies receiving their first recorded funding, exactly the same number as in the previous period. What changed was the size of those first checks: the median first financing rose from $20M to $44.5M.

Humble Robotics emerged with a $24M seed round. Niulinx launched with roughly $44.5M in financing. CargoX entered at a very different scale with a $250M round led by BlueFive Capital. These are meaningful new companies, but three newcomers across an entire year hardly looks like a flood of fresh startup creation.

Existing companies still dominate the funding flow, while the few newcomers that break through are arriving with much larger initial rounds.

Are established autonomous vehicle companies getting much bigger checks now?

Established autonomous vehicle companies are getting much bigger checks now: the median follow-on round has climbed from $43.25M to $100M.

Follow-ons account for 18 of the 21 current financings. Their combined disclosed capital reaches at least $19.83B, compared with roughly $6.72B in the preceding period.

The list includes companies at very different stages of commercial maturity. Waymo returned for its huge growth round. Wayve closed a $1.2B Series D and later added a $60M extension. Waabi raised $750M in Series C equity. Gatik raised $200M. Neolix secured more than $600M.

This is where the current market feels strongest. Investors are writing substantially larger checks once a company has survived the earlier technical and financing stages and can make a credible case for deployment.

Has the funding bar moved up for autonomous vehicle startups?

Yes: the funding bar for autonomous vehicle companies has moved sharply upward, and the disappearance of small rounds is one of the clearest changes in the market.

Seven financings in the previous period were below $20M. We found zero in the latest period. At the same time, the number of disclosed rounds between $20M and $50M doubled from four to eight.

At the other end, ten current rounds are $100M or more. The whole distribution has shifted upward rather than being pulled up only by one massive transaction.

The median disclosed round has more than doubled. For a funded AV company today, a $20M-$50M financing looks much more normal than a $5M-$10M round.

Funding-size measure	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
<$5M deals	0	3	-3
$5M–<$20M deals	0	4	-4
$20M–<$50M deals	8	4	+4
$50M–<$100M deals	2	2	No change
$100M+ deals	10	8	+2
Median disclosed round	$81.45M	$33.8M	+141%
Deals strictly above $100M	42.9%	21.7%	+21.2 pp

Are autonomous vehicle investors taking more risk, or getting more selective?

Autonomous vehicle investors still make early-stage bets, while almost all of the money is pooling around mature scale-ups.

Seed and Series A together account for about one-third of current transactions. Among deals whose stage is known, early-stage financings represent roughly 35% today versus 24% previously. Young companies have therefore kept a place in the market.

The dollar allocation tells a very different story. Series D+ rounds account for 91% of current disclosed capital. Waymo contributes heavily to that figure, so the percentage looks more dramatic than the underlying shift, but several other large later-stage financings point in the same direction.

Company age adds another layer. The overall median funded company is still around five years old, almost exactly where it was one year earlier. Autonomous trucking is different: the median funded trucking company went from roughly two years old to five. Investors are increasingly backing freight-autonomy companies that have had time to build products, partnerships and operating experience.

Stage disclosure also improved substantially, with Unknown falling from 26.1% of transactions to 4.8%. That makes some of the raw stage-share movement look larger than the underlying economic change, so we give more weight to the combination of stage, company age and round size.

Stage	Current deal share	Current capital share	Previous deal share	Previous capital share
Seed	9.5%	0.3%	17.4%	0.7%
Series A	23.8%	2.0%	0%	0%
Series B	19.0%	1.2%	17.4%	3.4%
Series C	4.8%	3.7%	17.4%	85.7%
Series D+	33.3%	91.0%	8.7%	2.8%
Growth Equity	4.8%	0.1%	13.0%	0.1%
Unknown	4.8%	1.5%	26.1%	7.2%

Is autonomous trucking where the real funding momentum is now?

Yes: autonomous trucking has the strongest broad-based funding momentum in the AV market right now.

We counted ten trucking financings, up from eight a year earlier. The category now represents 47.6% of all deals, compared with 34.8% previously. Its median disclosed financing jumped from just $8.15M to $150M.

More importantly, several companies are driving the change. Waabi closed $750M in Series C equity. Neolix raised more than $600M. Zelos raised more than $300M in one current financing after another $100M close. Gatik raised $200M. KargoBot secured more than $100M. CargoX launched with $250M.

Recent operating updates make the financing appetite easier to understand. When Gatik announced its $200M Series D, the company said it had more than $600M of contracted revenue and had completed 85,000 fully driverless orders. Waabi says its current capital is pushing autonomous trucking toward commercialization while also funding an expansion of its technology into robotaxis.

That breadth is what makes trucking stand out. Several independent companies are raising larger rounds while moving further into real freight operations.

Is funding for autonomous driving software fading?

Funding for standalone autonomous driving systems has clearly weakened in our current deal sample.

The category fell from nine financings to five. Disclosed capital dropped from roughly $1.06B to $233.8M, while its median round went from about $98.5M to $44.5M.

Some of the decline comes from how companies are evolving. Wayve's largest current financing sits in Autonomous Vehicle Platforms because its business now spans a broader deployment model, even though autonomous-driving AI remains the core technology. Similar category shifts happen as companies move from selling a driving stack toward operating fleets, licensing platforms or targeting a specific commercial market.

Still, the direction is hard to miss. Investors are putting less money into companies framed mainly around the autonomous-driving system itself and more into businesses tied to a concrete deployment model.

Are robotaxis attracting more investors now, or just much bigger checks?

Robotaxi funding has exploded in dollars, while the number of financed robotaxi companies remains tiny.

We counted two current robotaxi financings compared with one in the previous period. Together they represent about $16.28B, overwhelmingly because of Waymo, with DiDi Autonomous Driving contributing the other major current transaction.

Waymo's latest company update helps explain why so much capital can concentrate in one business. The company says it completed 15 million rides in 2025 and is now providing more than 400,000 rides per week, with plans to expand into more than 20 additional cities.

That is a very different funding story from trucking. Trucking has gained multiple funded companies. Robotaxis have gained an enormous amount of capital around a very small number of established operators.

Are strategic investors becoming more important in autonomous vehicle funding?

Strategic investors have moved deeper into autonomous vehicle funding, especially around companies preparing for commercial deployment.

Strategic participation increased from 60.9% to 71.4% of deals. The change becomes even clearer in mature rounds: seven current Series D+ financings involve strategic investors, compared with two in the previous period.

Look at who is showing up. Wayve attracted Microsoft, NVIDIA, Uber, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis. Waabi's current round includes Uber, NVentures, Volvo Group Venture Capital and Porsche Automobil Holding. Mobileye led Beep's latest Series B. Turing's Series A extension brought in AMD Ventures, Mitsubishi Corporation and several technology and infrastructure partners.

These investors can bring something beyond cash: vehicles, chips, cloud capacity, logistics demand, ride-hailing distribution or routes into production.

We also identified 63 unique disclosed lead or strategic investors in the current period, up from 43. Investor disclosure is somewhat better today, so the full increase should not be treated as pure market growth. Even after allowing for that, capital appears to be coming from a wider mix of financial and industrial players.

Is autonomous vehicle funding moving from Asia toward Europe?

Europe is showing up much more often in autonomous vehicle financing now, but Asia still produces far more deals.

Europe went from one financing to four. Its disclosed capital reached roughly $1.33B, although Wayve accounts for most of those dollars. Niulinx in Italy and Aidoptation in Belgium make the increase in deal count more interesting than the capital figure alone.

Asia-Pacific moved from 15 deals to ten, yet the median Asian financing rose from $30.75M to $81.45M. China went from eight transactions to five while its median increased from roughly $100M to about $281M. Japan went from six to four, with its median rising from around $4.1M to $37.5M.

So Asia looks more selective these days rather than absent. China still produced large financings for Neolix, Zelos and KargoBot, while Japan produced substantial new rounds for Turing and other autonomy companies.

North America remains the biggest source of dollars because of Waymo, while the Middle East also entered the current dataset through CargoX's $250M financing in the UAE.

Are autonomous vehicle companies raising again faster now?

We cannot say that autonomous vehicle companies are raising faster today because the public data do not support a clean like-for-like timing comparison.

Previous-round dates and previous-round sizes are missing too often for us to calculate a defensible market-wide months-to-next-round figure or step-up ratio. Reconstructing only the easy companies from press releases would bias the comparison toward businesses with better disclosure.

That means we can confidently say follow-on checks became much larger, while the pace of those follow-ons remains unresolved.

Are autonomous vehicle startups raising to build the technology or to scale it now?

The biggest autonomous vehicle rounds now look much more like deployment capital than pure R&D capital.

Waymo's current financing follows a year in which the company says it delivered 15 million rides, and the company is using the new capital as it expands into many more cities. Wayve says its latest financing supports commercial robotaxi trials and deployment of its AI Driver in consumer vehicles. Waabi says its Series C will accelerate autonomous-trucking commercialization while funding its move into robotaxis.

The same pattern appears further down the deal table. Neolix says its Series D will support new commercial applications, service-network expansion and international growth. Turing says the equity raised in its Series A extension will support computing infrastructure, commercial operations and real-world deployment. Beep says its latest capital will help scale autonomous mobility services and deployment of its AutonomOS platform.

We should still be careful about generalizing this across every deal because use-of-funds disclosure varies a lot. But across the largest current rounds, the wording has changed noticeably: deployment, fleet expansion, commercial operations, production integration and geographic rollout now appear again and again.

What really changed over the last 12 months?

The biggest structural change is the size of the checks. Autonomous vehicle companies that clear today's funding bar can raise far more capital than they could a year ago. The median round moved above $80M, follow-on checks became much larger, and sub-$20M deals vanished from the current sample.

Funding breadth improved only slightly. One additional company received financing, while the number of first-time funded companies stayed flat. The current cycle therefore rewards companies that have already made it through several years of development much more clearly than it creates a large new generation of startups.

Autonomous trucking stands out because the move is broad rather than concentrated in one giant transaction. The category gained deals, deal share and round size at the same time, with multiple companies participating.

Investor behavior is changing too. Strategic investors now appear in more than seven out of ten deals, and many of the biggest rounds connect autonomy startups directly with automakers, chipmakers, cloud companies, logistics groups and mobility platforms. Commercial access is becoming part of the financing story.

The weaker part of the market shows up once every round above $100M is removed: the remaining capital pool shrank. That's the awkward bit behind the boom headline.

The misleading shorthand would be that autonomous vehicle funding simply tripled and the whole sector is flush with capital again. The actual change is narrower: the market is writing much bigger checks for companies that look ready to deploy, and autonomous trucking has moved much further up the funding curve.