Comment by infecto

Comment by infecto 9 hours ago

4 replies

Yes and what matters the most is what Waymo has been signaling for years. They don’t want the capex (owning and running the physical cars). I don’t know the intent of this raise but you have to realize companies may have a good asset but they don’t want to own it 100% for a multitude of reasons. Some of them could be as simple as wanting to get other investors involved and comfortable with the asset to maybe take on larger roles in future rounds. Or in this case potentially running the car part of the business.

bryanlarsen 8 hours ago

By investing $13B of the $16B they're signalling they do want the capex, at least for now.

  • infecto 8 hours ago

    If they truly wanted the capex, this would not be a mixed round A fully internal recap would have been simpler. The presence of outside capital, even minority, is consistent with a gradual transition toward shared ownership, asset light structures, or operator partners.

    They have made many comments over the years about this too.

    • kolbe 2 hours ago

      What gradual transition? Alphabet's ownership percentage is unchanged.

      • infecto 3 minutes ago

        Notice I left a list of potential reasons. Not that ownership has changed. Just pointing out for folks like yourself that Google has made commentary about this exploring the idea of partnering with companies that operate the physical fleet. $3bn even if chump change for you is still a larger placement and has some level of signaling indicating the want to get other folks involved at some level.