Waymo, the autonomous car company owned by Alphabet, has raised $16 billion as it plans to grow its fleet of driverless taxicabs this year to more than a dozen new cities around the world, including London and Tokyo.

Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which now values ​​Waymo at $126 billion, the company said in a blog post monday Parent company Alphabet supported the round and maintained its position as the majority investor.

The round also included significant investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Mubadala Capital, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. Additional investors include BDT & MSD Partners, CapitalG, Fidelity Management & Research Company, GV, Kleiner Perkins, Perry Creek Capital, and Temasek.

Waymo said the funds will be used to fuel its growth, which has accelerated over the past year and doesn’t appear to be slowing. The company recently secured rides to and from San Francisco International Airport and expanded robotaxi service throughout Northern California and several major US metropolitan areas including Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami.

Over the years, the former Google self-driving project has progressed slowly, testing its autonomous vehicle technology on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and giving the occasional public or media demo. In 2016, it made its first geographic leap forward and began testing in Phoenix, where it ultimately pulled the human safety driver except for cars. Phoenix becomes Waymo’s first robotaxi market, where the public can admire driverless Chrysler Pacific minivans.

Waymo pushed the accelerator in August 2023 after receiving the final necessary permit to operate a robotaxi service – and charge for rides – in California. It launched limited service in San Francisco, later expanding to much of the greater Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and more recently to freeways connecting many cities in the area. It is also expanding to Los Angeles. The company is launching in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. It started the year Miami expansion.

The geographic expansion has translated into 400,000 rides provided each week in six major US metropolitan areas. The company says in 2025 alone, it will more than triple its annual number to 15 million rides, surpassing 20 million lifetime rides so far.

“We are no longer proving a concept,” the company wrote in its blog post. “We are scaling a commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in more than 20 additional cities by 2026, including Tokyo and London.”

The rapid expansion also brought more scrutiny and criticism as Waymo’s robotaxis made missteps and the technology. creates problems for some residents.

Some robotaxis show dangerous behavior especially in school zones. The Office of Defects Investigation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have opened investigations of Waymo robotaxis’ illegal behavior around school buses. NHTSA also launched another investigation last week after a Waymo robotaxi hit a child near a school. The boy, who suffered minor injuries, was hit at about 6 mph.