Caroline Hyde

Self-driving startup Wabi might have secured $1 billion in new funding.

It includes a $750 million Series C that was led by Coastal Ventures, by G2 Venture Partners, plus $250 million in a milestone-based investment from Uber to launch Wabi-enabled robo-taxis.

Joining us now, Raquel Roterson.

She is CEO, founder of Wabi.

How important is this focus on physical AI in the trucking space?

Now moving to the robo-taxi, how significant is that for you?

Well, they're securing new deals.

They're already commercializing.

How is your go-to-market looking?

It's all about the platform that you offer when it comes to trucking and now robo-taxis.

What is it that makes you so distinct?

Raquel, congratulations on the round, really notable.

It reads like the money that's coming in from Uber is contingent on you hitting some milestones in robo-taxi, right?

Your focus has been autonomous trucking.

What are those milestones in robo-taxi that Uber requires you to hit so you can unlock access to that cash?

You're a Canadian company, essentially.

And one of the conversations that we were having yesterday with Gatik is in the US, a need for a federal regulatory framework.

Are you able to give me a kind of assessment of going to market in Canada versus the United States?

Which jurisdiction you think is ahead in accommodating this nascent technology?

What's interesting is that you've been in AI, deeply entrenched in the academic side of it, still a full professor over in the University of Toronto for 25 years.