Waymo appears to be far far ahead anyone else in autonomous driving. They could really run errr drive away with this! Autonomous vehicle company Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, announced on Friday that it had raised $5.6 billion in a funding round led by its parent company. Other investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity and Silver Lake also participated in the fundraising, according to the company. Waymo says it will use the capital to expand its robotaxi service and improve its autonomous driving technology “to support a variety of business applications over time.” The company has made efforts to commercialize its self-driving technology in different ways, including by running an autonomous trucking division. But in recent months it has been focused on expanding its ride-hailing program, including partnership with Uber to bring it to new U.S. cities including Atlanta and Austin. Alphabet and other investors have poured a total of at least $13 billion into Waymo over time, according to an estimate by The Information, disclosures by Waymo, and a statement from Alphabet’s management on its earnings call in July that it would invest another $5 billion into the company in the next few years. It’s unclear how much Alphabet or any of the other investors alone contributed to the latest round. https://waymo.com/blog/20.. #The Most Important Thing #Robotics Revolution 🦾🤖🦿