Autonomous vehicle software company Wayve is one of Europe’s buzziest startups right now.
It counts the likes of SoftBank, Microsoft and Nvidia on its cap table and raised the region’s biggest round of 2024 when it picked up a $1bn Series C in May last year.
That raise put the company firmly in a race with a roster of hugely well-funded US tech giants, including the likes of Elon Musk’s Tesla, General Motors’ Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo, to develop technology for self-driving cars.
While its coffers are much shallower than many of its US competitors and the startup is yet to announce any revenue-making commercial deals, Wayve is taking a less resource intensive approach than many of them.
The company is looking to sell its AI systems to carmakers, as opposed to building a fully autonomous vehicle itself.
Led by CEO and cofounder Alex Kendall, senior leaders at Wayve have previously worked at carmakers, competitors like Waymo and Big Tech.
Using information from the company itself and insider knowledge, Sifted has mapped out the key individuals who hold the power at Wayve.
At the top
Alex Kendall, CEO
Kendall founded Wayve in 2017 alongside fellow University of Cambridge PhD student Amar Shah (who was CEO at the company). Kendall was initially CTO at the company and stepped up to the helm in 2020 when Shah left.
The New Zealand-born entrepreneur has a PhD in deep learning, computer vision and robotics from the University of Cambridge, and was previously an engineer at drone startup Skydio and computer vision company Scape Technologies.
Under Kendall’s leadership, Wayve has raised more than $1.3bn and grown to more than 400 employees, according to LinkedIn. Investors include OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever and Richard Branson, alongside VCs Balderton Capital, Air Street Capital and Baillie Gifford.
Below Kendall sit president Erez Dagan and chief financial officer Max Warburton.
Erez Dagan, president
Dagan joined Wayve in March last year after 20 years at Israeli AV company Mobileye. His remit includes overseeing product, business and strategy around selling Wayve’s AV tech to carmakers. Dagan is based in Israel.
Max Warburton, chief financial officer
Before joining the company in November last year, Warburton spent two decades as an automotive analyst at banking giants Goldman Sachs, UBS and Bernstein. At Wayve, Warburton leads the finance team and oversees investor relations. He’s London-based.
From 2020-23 he was board advisor and head of special projects at Daimler and Mercedes — and presumably built a roster of carmaker connections that Wayve will be hoping to leverage as it looks to ink revenue-driving commercial deals in the coming years.
Senior leadership
Jamie Shotton, chief scientist
Leading Wayve’s research departments is Vancouver-based chief scientist Jamie Shotton. He took on the role in 2021, following 13 years at Microsoft, where he finished as a director of science. Shotton has a PhD in computer vision from the University of Cambridge.
Dan McCloskey, VP, hardware
Dan McCloskey leads the hardware teams at Wayve from San Francisco, where he founded and built the company’s California office. He joined as VP, hardware in 2021, and brings experience leading engineering teams at Waymo and Google’s self-driving car division.
Emma Baillie, VP people
Heading up the people and talent operations is London-based Emma Baillie. She joined Wayve in 2023 as VP, people, with experience in C-suite roles at companies including media brand Legend and deals platform Dealogic.
Kaity Fischer, VP commercial and fleet operations
Kaity Fischer is VP, commercial and fleet operations and leads Wayve’s partnerships and commercialisation strategy. Fischer has spent over three years at Wayve, and was previously strategic partnership manager at Waymo.
Silvius Rus, VP, software
Wayve’s software teams are led by Silvius Rus, who joined the company in 2023 as VP, software after five years as engineering director at Google. Rus is based in London and his focus is training and deploying Wayve’s AI driving software at scale.
Pablo Castellanos García, VP engineering
Pablo Castellanos García is VP, engineering and works from London. García oversees all of Wayve’s fleet operations, including road testing, vehicle maintenance and fleet management. He joined in 2020 from flight booking platform Skyscanner.
Business leads
Vijay Badrinarayanan, VP, AI
Vijay Badrinarayanan is the VP, AI and leads a team of researchers in product development. SF-based, Badrinarayanan reports to Kendall and joined Wayve in 2020 from US unicorn extended reality startup Magic Leap.
Frank Fink, director, automotive partnerships
Also working from SF is director, automotive partnerships Frank Fink. He was hired from Waymo in 2023.
Sarah Gates, director, public policy
Sarah Gates is director, public policy and is responsible for the company’s lobbying efforts. Gates is London-based and reports to Fischer. She was previously a senior policy advisor in the UK’s civil service.
Joanne Lin, head of supply chain
Head of supply chain is Joanne Lin. Based in SF, Lin reports to McCloskey and joined Wayve in 2022 and was previously supply chain manager at Airbnb and carmaker Lucid Motors.
Campbell Mcilroy, head of security
Campbell Mcilroy heads up security at Wayve, including IT systems, products, facilities and personnel safety. He reports to García and took on the role in 2022. Mcilroy was previously deputy chief information security officer at Transport for London — the government-owned company that runs the city’s public transport network.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/wayve-power-players/
