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Driverless Taxi Service Waymo Seeking Up to $3B From Private Lenders to Fuel Growth; Goldman Sachs Advising
Waymo, the self-driving taxi company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is seeking a $2 billion to $3 billion private credit loan to fund growth, according to sources.
Goldman Sachs has been mandated to lead the process and has begun sounding out a large group of direct lenders, including Ares Management, to participate in the financing, sources said. The process is in the early stages, and pricing discussions are still underway.
If it materializes, the debt financing would be among the largest financing efforts for an EBITDA-negative company on record, one source noted.
Waymo pioneered the self-driving car industry in 2009, when it began as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. In 2016, the company was formally established as a driverless vehicle technology company under Alphabet, which is still its majority owner. Other outside investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake and Sequoia Capital.
The debt package is expected to total between $2 billion and $3 billion, the sources said, noting that the exact size will depend on the deal’s structure. A lead lender has not yet been selected, they added.
Despite the fact that Waymo is a pre-EBITDA company, lenders see the financing as an attractive opportunity because of the company’s valuable intellectual property and substantial equity backing, one of the sources said.
Market participants said they expect the loan to price at a premium given the company’s negative EBITDA profile, though pricing remains undetermined.
In February, Waymo raised a $16 billion investment round that valued the company at $126 billion post-money, according to a press release. The financing was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital, with significant additional investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Mubadala Capital, among others. In 2024, the company closed a $5.6 billion funding round led by Alphabet, according to a previous press release.
Waymo operates a fleet of driverless vehicles in 11 cities, according to its website, and is expected to expand to more than 20 additional cities this year, including Tokyo and London, according to a press release. The company provides more than 400,000 rides every week.
Previous multibillion-dollar loans to pre-EBITDA companies include a roughly $1.6 billion annual recurring revenue loan package to finance Hg’s $6.4 billion acquisition of finance software developer OneStream, Octus reported In January.
Elsewhere, Morgan Stanley launched a refinancing for tax software business Avalara’s $2.5 billion annual recurring revenue loan in 2025. Private lenders provided the original facility in 2022 to back the company’s $8.4 billion acquisition by Vista Equity Partners, Octus reported.
Ares Management and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Google did not return requests for comment.
A Waymo spokesperson said: “We do not comment on rumor or speculation. Waymo remains focused on scaling our autonomous ride-hailing service and continuing to deliver safe, autonomous trips to our riders.”
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