Wayve opens $85M employee tender offer at $8.5B valuation to retain AI talent

Wayve, a U.K.-based self-driving AI startup, opened an $85 million employee tender offer at a $8.5 billion valuation. The tender allows employees to sell a portion of their vested equity back to investors, led by existing and new backers. The company’s latest valuation was set in February during a $1.2 billion Series D round led by Eclipse, Balderton, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber.

This marks Wayve’s second employee liquidity event. The company previously held a tender offer alongside its $1.05 billion Series C funding round in May 2024. These events are part of a growing trend among AI startups to use secondary offerings as retention tools, giving employees liquidity without requiring an exit.

Wayve’s approach to autonomous driving relies on an end-to-end neural network that learns to drive from data, rather than prebuilt high-definition maps. The company has more than doubled its headcount to 1,200 employees over the past year as it pursues a general-purpose AI driver capable of operating across countries, cars, and road conditions.

The company is targeting robotaxi pilot launches in partnership with Uber later this year, while separately planning to integrate its AI software into Nissan’s next-generation driver-assist systems starting in 2027.