Waabi

Waabi

Sector Transportation

Headquarters Toronto

Founder Raquel Urtasun

Founded 2021

Employees 50-101

Funding CAD + $100M

Waabi translates from the Ojibwe as “one who has vision, one who sees.” The word certainly describes CEO Raquel Urtasun, a world-renowned expert in autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence. Her vision? To take self-driving cars out of the realm of science fiction and onto the highways of the world. Waabi is not alone, of course. Dozens of startups and tech giants are hot in pursuit of the same goal. A key difference? Waabi is using a new generation of AI algorithms to “teach the self-driving brain to drive on its own,” Urtasun says. By creating elaborate simulations to replace most real-world, real-road tests, Waabi can streamline the process of motion planning and predicting what other vehicles on the road will do – and potentially commercialize its technology in a faster, cheaper, and safer way. Waabi plans to focus first on trucking. The company is designing software to automate driving on commercial delivery routes. After all, highways are easier to navigate than city streets. And trucking companies around the world are struggling to find drivers. With the power of AI, the trucks themselves may soon be “waabi.”