How to Buy Waymo Stock Before Its IPO

Waymo is Google's self-driving car project and is the leader in fully autonomous vehicles (AVs).

To date, the company has driven more than 20 million real-world miles and 20 billion simulated miles. And its technology isn't just theoretical — it's operational.

Users in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix can use the Waymo app to hail autonomous taxi rides. It's like an Uber or Lyft, but without a driver.

In October 2024, Waymo raised an additional $5.6 billion to help it expand operations, bringing its total funding to over $11 billion. Waymo is currently building out the infrastructure to start operating in Atlanta and Austin.

In addition to robotaxis, Waymo's self-driving technology could be used for public transportation, trucking, and personal vehicles — the applications are limitless.

Every vehicle on the road could become autonomous, which is why the autonomous vehicle sector is expected to grow to $614.9 billion by 2030, and the lion's share of that market will go to just a few players.

Given its market-leading position, it's hard to imagine that Waymo won't be one of them. And for early investors, the returns could be huge.

Here's how to buy Waymo stock in 2024 before it goes public.

Can you buy Waymo stock?

Waymo is a private company and has not made any indication it plans to IPO in the near future. There is no Waymo stock symbol and you can't buy it in your brokerage account.

Waymo has access to plenty of funding (more on that below) and has a backlog of companies that want to partner with it. At this point, there's no need for it to turn to the public markets.

However, if you don't want to wait until its IPO, there is a way you can invest in Waymo stock today.

How to buy Waymo stock in 2024

There are multiple ways to invest in Waymo, depending on whether you're an accredited or a retail investor.

Accredited investors (individuals with an annual income of more than $200,000 or $300,000 for married couples, or a net worth exceeding $1,000,000 excluding your primary residence) can invest directly in Waymo on Hiive. This is covered in the next section.

If you don't qualify as an accredited investor, there are a few other ways to invest in Waymo and the AV industry in general. I cover those in the second section below.

1. How to buy Waymo stock as an accredited investor

Hiive is a secondary marketplace platform which allows accredited investors to buy shares of high-growth, VC-backed startups and private companies, including Waymo:

There are 6 live orders of Waymo stock currently available on Hiive. At the time of this writing, shares are trading at $59.26.

Employees, founders, venture capital and hedge funds, angel investors – anyone with shares to sell can create a listing on Hiive. Investors can place bids and negotiate with sellers or just accept their asking prices.

Sign up to see the Waymo listing (number of shares and asking price) available on Hiive:

Register for Hiive

2. How to invest in Waymo as a retail investor

While buying Waymo via Hiive is only possible for accredited investors, here are a few investment ideas for retail investors that can give you exposure to Waymo or the autonomous vehicle industry.

1. Invest in Waymo's investors and partners

The most obvious way for a retail investor to invest in Waymo is via an investment in Alphabet (GOOGL), Google's parent company.

Based on my estimates (math in a later chapter), Google likely owns ~80% of Waymo. If Waymo is worth $30 billion (its most recent valuation), that stake is worth $24 billion, which makes up just 1.1% of Google's $2.14 trillion business.

Still, if Waymo becomes a dominant player in the AV industry, it could become an increasingly important part of Google's conglomerate.

AutoNation (AN) is another public company that owns a stake in Waymo. AutoNation has participated in two of Waymo's funding rounds, though its exact stake is unknown (likely a few hundred million).

Additionally, AutoNation has a partnership with Waymo that involves Waymo vehicles delivering parts to AutoNation locations and other repair shops in Arizona. I wouldn't be surprised to see this partnership become much larger in years to come.

Given AutoNation's $6.3 billion market cap, there's potential that Waymo could have an outsized impact on its business.

Waymo has additional partnerships with multiple vehicle manufacturers and ride-hailing companies including Stellantis (STLA), Mercedes-Benz Group AG (MBGYY), Lyft (LYFT), Avis, Intel (INTC), Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo (VLVLY).

2. Invest in publicly traded competitors

Given the AV industry's potential, there are a few Waymo competitors you could consider:

a) Tesla 

Another major competitor in AVs is Tesla (TSLA), which released Autopilot, its self-driving feature, eight years ago.

Teslas are equipped with the necessary hardware and software to function autonomously but are not yet approved to drive themselves because of safety concerns.

All self-driving features are currently labeled as “hands-on” driver assistance.

b) General Motors

While Waymo is currently considered the leader in self-driving cars, Cruise is not far behind.

Cruise is the self-driving unit of General Motors (GM) and also has fully operational robotaxis in several cities.

c) Uber

Ride-hailing companies Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT) are also working to develop their own autonomous vehicle technology. While Waymo has a head start, Uber has an existing network and a massive list of users.

In 2018, Waymo sued and won a case arguing Uber stole some of its technology. If Uber can't build the technology on its own, I would expect a partnership or licensing agreement with Waymo.

d) Additional options

Additional competitors include Aurora, Nuro, Luminar Technologies, and Motional.

Although there are many competitors, Waymo is by far the most established.

What does Waymo actually do?

Waymo was founded in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project.

The company designs and builds the hardware and software required to make autonomous vehicles. The hardware includes sensors, cameras, radar, and more.

Unlike Tesla, Waymo does not plan to build its own vehicles, instead partnering with car manufacturers so it can focus on its technology. All of Waymo's cars are electric, so Google may be interested in investing in Redwood Materials.

In addition to the hardware and software involved, Waymo must create the infrastructure required to operate in a new city. This involves mapping out the territory, such as intersections, turn lanes, curbs, crosswalks, and more.

While the technology can operate solely from its real-time sensors, this added layer of infrastructure and data makes each route much safer.

It's worth noting though that a Waymo vehicle can plot a new territory and upload the plot to its network for all vehicles to use by using its sensors.

Does Google own Waymo?

Waymo was launched in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. It was re-branded as Waymo in 2016, but remained a self-contained project wholly-owned by Google until 2020.

In March 2020, Waymo raised $2.25 billion at a valuation of $30 billion. This implies Google sold about 7.5% of its stake in Waymo, leaving it with 92.5% ownership.

Waymo raised an additional $750 million in May of 2020 and another $2.5 billion in June of 2021, though no valuation figures were released.

If we assume a $30 billion valuation at both of these rounds, that would imply Google sold another 10.8%, reducing its ownership to 81.7%.

In October 2024, Waymo raised another $5.6 billion in an oversubscribed Series C round. Once again, the capital was raised at an undisclosed valuation.

Alphabet led the Series C, so I estimate it still owns ~80% of Waymo.

In addition to Alphabet (Google's parent company), investors include T. Rowe Price (TROW), Magna International, Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan, Tiger Global Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek Capital, and AutoNation (AN).

Google has another company, Wing, which uses similar techonology as Waymo. It is an autonomous drone delivery business. If that business interests you, you can invest in Zipline stock, Wing's primary competitor, on Hiive.

How to buy the Waymo IPO

Waymo has made no indication of any plans to IPO. However, if you want to invest in it when it does go public, you'll need a brokerage account.

If you don't have a brokerage account, we recommend Public.

On Public, you can Invest in stocks, ETFs, treasuries, and cryptocurrencies, all on one of the most well-designed investing platforms.

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Waymo valuation chart

Analysts at Morgan Stanley have been bullish on Waymo since 2017.

In May 2017, the firm valued the company at $70 billion. About a year later, they raised that number to $175 billion, despite the project being pre-revenue.

In September 2019, Morgan Stanley cut its valuation by 40% to $105 billion. The cut was due to the commercialized product taking longer than expected to develop.

However, no external funding was raised at any of these valuations — they were all estimates.

As mentioned above, Google was the sole owner of Waymo until March 2020 when it raised $2.25 billion at a $30 billion valuation. This is the only official valuation figure in Waymo's history.

It raised an additional $750 million in May 2020, $2.5 billion in June 2021, and $5.6 billion in October 2024, but the valuations were not disclosed.

Using Morgan Stanley's estimates, here's a look at how Waymo's valuation has changed over time:

Since its last round, Waymo has successfully begun robotaxi operations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, with plans to enter Atlanta and Austin.