Waymo LLC, the self-driving car division of Alphabet Inc. today said it has raised $2.25 billion in its first external fundraising round to develop out its self -driving technology.

The round, which came just shy of a year after it was reported that Alphabet was looking for outside investors, was led Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Mubadala Investment. Other investors included Magna International, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation and Alphabet itself.

Waymo has its origins in 2009 as Project Chauffeur, then later the Google Car project. The company is considered by many to be the leader in self-driving car tech. Waymo, unlike its competitors, has moved beyond testing, having deployed self-driving cars into a paid service with Waymo One in December 2018.

The company’s technology hasn’t always been well-received, however. In late 2018, there were reports that some residents in Phoenix, Arizona, were attacking Waymo autonomous vehicles in an apparent backlash to the use of the technology on their streets.

“We’ve always approached our mission as a team sport, collaborating with our OEM and supplier partners, our operations partners, and the communities we serve to build and deploy the world’s most experienced driver,” John Krafcik, chief executive officer of Waymo, said in a blog post. “Today, we’re expanding that team, adding financial investors and important strategic partners who bring decades of experience investing in and supporting successful technology companies building transformative products.”

Along with the funding announcement, Waymo also shared what it described as major operational and technical milestones. Waymo’s self-driving technology now has navigated more than 20 million miles on public roads across over 25 cities, according to the company. In addition, it said the Waymo Detroit factory has shipped the first vehicles integrated with fifth-generation hardware.

Waymo One, the company’s Phoenix self-driving ride-hailing service, now serves thousands of customers “in a high-speed mixed-usage market area larger than San Francisco,” the company said.

The investment should come as a relief to Alphabet investors given that in its 11-year history, Waymo has been a money sink. Alphabet has pumped more than $1 billion into it each year. Self-driving cars have long been a popular concept among Silicon Valley elite, but not everyone believes that the technology is viable.

George Holtz, best known as being the first person to unlock an iPhone, told ReasonTV Feb. 24 that he believes that fully self-driving cars are a “scam,” though he also added that Silicon Valley “needs to die.” Holtz is the founder of Comma.ai, a self-driving car technology company that uses smartphones rather than other advanced technologies to automate cars.

Photo: Waymo