Pre-IPO pedia | Alphabet's Waymo, a top autonomous vehicle unicorn to watch out

Waymo IPO on the cards?

Last month, Alphabet's autonomous vehicle (AV) company Waymo announced its partnership with a Chinese automaker called Geely to build a self-driving ride-hailing vehicle.

After the partnership announcement with Zeekr, Waymo's initial public offering (IPO) plans attracted more and more potential investors.

While autonomous vehicle (AV) stocks remain one of the most exciting tech industries in the stock market today, it is also one that may require time to grow.

The AV space may be relatively young now, but many companies are already showing interest and taking action to have a piece of the pie. These would include some of the tech giants such as Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) that has a company dedicated to autonomous driving, Mobileye.

Alphabet also has a self-driving car project that was started more than a decade ago with the goal of driving autonomously.Today, the project has turned into Waymo.

The company is developing cars and trucks that will operate themselves using Waymo Driver, a system of sensors and computers that can operate vehicles without humans behind a wheel.

Waymo operates a commercial self-driving taxi service in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area called "Waymo One", with Chandler, Arizona fully mapped. In October 2020, the company expanded the service to the public.

“With tens of millions of miles driven on public roads across 25 U.S. cities and tens of billions of miles driven in simulation, our experience has shown us and our investors the massive opportunity ahead,” the company said, “We’re building and deploying the Waymo Driver to serve riders, deliver parcels, move freight, and eventually, to empower personal car ownership.”

On the other side, Waymo is one of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” that continues to lose money and the latest funding shows the company is increasingly relying on other investors to help support the unit.

Google sibling company Waymo reportedly moves closer to a go-public deal.Bloomberg quoted unnamed sources in 2021,May as saying that Waymohas “discussed plans to eventually list publicly” separate from Alphabet.

According to investor website PitchBook, Waymo, is valued at just over $30 billion, as of January 17th, 2022.

The company announced a $2.5 billion investment round in 2021 June, which will go toward advancing its autonomous driving technology and growing its team.

According to a Bloomberg report, Waymo aims to raise as much as $4 billion to invest in its self-driving business, cited by unidentified sources. It raised $3.25 billion last year in two separate transactions where the first brought in $2.25 billion.

The latest round includes funding from Waymo-parent company Alphabet, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Magna International, Mubadala Investment Company, Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Temasek, and Tiger Global.