Wayve launches $85M employee tender offer at $8.5B valuation
Key takeaways
- Wayve, a UK-based self-driving tech startup, is allowing its employees to sell a portion of their vested equity.
- The company previously held a tender offer alongside its $1.05 billion Series C funding round in May 2024.
- Wayve’s offering is part of a growing trend of AI startups.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Wayve, a UK-based self-driving tech startup, is allowing its employees to sell a portion of their vested equity. The $85 million tender offer — essentially a structured opportunity for employees to sell shares back to investors — is being led by the company’s existing and new investors at the company’s latest valuation of $8.5 billion.
That valuation was set in February when the nine-year-old company raised a $1.2 billion Series D led by Eclipse, Balderton and Soft Bank Vision Fund 2, and included participation from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber.
This is 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.