Wayve, a UK-based autonomous driving startup, is opening an $85 million tender offer that allows employees to sell a portion of their vested equity back to investors.
The offer is being led by existing and new investors at the company’s current valuation of $8.5 billion, a figure established in February of this year.
That valuation was set when Wayve closed 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 (NASDAQ: MSFT), NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Uber (NYSE: UBER).
This marks Wayve’s second employee liquidity event, following a similar tender offer the company held alongside its $1.05 billion Series C round in May 2024.
The move reflects a broader trend among high-growth AI startups, which are increasingly using tender offers as a retention mechanism rather than waiting years for a traditional exit.
By giving employees a structured opportunity to cash out early, companies reduce the risk of losing key talent to competitors or to employees striking out on their own once their stock options vest.
Other AI startups that have recently completed similar liquidity events include Decagon, ElevenLabs, Linear, and Clay, the latter of which has now run two tender offers in the span of just nine months.
These programs are made possible largely because investors remain eager to acquire more equity in high-growth companies, even at a premium, wagering that the underlying businesses will command significantly higher valuations in the future.
Wayve’s core technology distinguishes itself from most autonomous driving programs by relying on an end-to-end neural network that learns purely from data, rather than pre-built, high-definition maps.
The company’s founders argue this approach more closely mirrors how humans develop driving skills through lived experience, positioning Wayve as a candidate for building a truly general-purpose AI driver.
In pursuit of that ambition, Wayve has more than doubled its headcount over the past year, growing to approximately 1,200 employees as it accelerates development and commercial partnerships.
The company is targeting robotaxi pilot launches in partnership with Uber later this year, while also planning to integrate its AI software into Nissan’s next-generation driver-assist systems beginning in 2027.
