The wealth of the co-founder of Wayve has topped £400 million after the autonomous vehicle start-up secured more than $1 billion in a fresh funding round led by SoftBank.
Alex Kendall, who launched the business in 2017, is understood to control a stake in the business worth £420 million, according to estimates by the Evening Standard Tech Rich List.
That would make the 31-year-old Cambridge graduate among the richest 30 tech founders in the country.
Kendall said: “At Wayve, our vision is to develop autonomous technology that not only becomes a reality in millions of vehicles but also earns people’s trust by seamlessly integrating into their everyday lives to unlock extraordinary value.
“This significant funding milestone highlights our team’s unwavering conviction that Embodied AI will address the long-standing challenges the industry has faced in scaling this technology to everyone, everywhere.”
The series C funding round is the biggest for a British AI firm to date, with the business counting tech giants Nvidia and Microsoft among its backers. It is the latest sign of the UK establishing itself as the foremost AI hub in Europe. According to the Tech Rich List, The 10 richest British AI entrepreneurs had already amassed a combined net worth of more than £2.3 billion by the end of last year.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “incredibly proud” of the investment and said it was a “testament to our leadership in this industry”.
Wayve is known for being the first to develop and test an end-to-end AI autonomous driving system on public roads, and has since expanded on this work with its Embodied AI developments.
Prior to the funding round, Kendall controlled an 11% share in Wayve according to its latest financial disclosures. The precise value of Kendall’s stake has not been disclosed. A spokesperson for Wayve did not respond to a request for comment.
