Participated · Equity · Jun 2021

Waymo develops and operates fully driverless robotaxis, offering on-demand rides across multiple U.S. metropolitan areas. Its fleet now delivers roughly 400,000 rides each week in six major cities, and the company more than tripled annual volume in 2025 to 15 million rides, surpassing 20 million lifetime trips. Having secured permits to charge for rides in California, Waymo has expanded from its original Phoenix deployment to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami. The firm plans to enter more than a dozen additional international cities in 2026, including London and Tokyo, and is “laying the groundwork” for operations in 20+ further locations. Waymo positions itself as past the proof-of-concept stage and focused on global scale. The latest financing values the company at $126 billion and provides capital to grow vehicle supply, broaden geographic coverage, and reinforce operational infrastructure. Regulatory scrutiny remains, with U.S. safety agencies investigating recent incidents involving the fleet.

Led · Series G · Dec 2018

Vroom is an end-to-end ecommerce platform that offers a way to buy and sell used vehicles, providing thousands of low-mileage, reconditioned cars delivered directly to consumers. Its scalable, data-driven technology manages all phases of the vehicle buying and selling process and the company arranges financing and offers warranty, insurance and other value-added products. Vroom operates the Texas Direct Auto brand and is based in New York and Houston. Since 2013 Vroom has been offering vehicles through its platform. To support national growth and inventory acquisition, Vroom announced a $450 million inventory financing relationship with Ally Financial, which doubles its total available credit from Ally. Ally had provided floorplan financing to Vroom since 2016 and the new agreement was finalized earlier this month. Vroom operates an e-commerce platform that handles the entire transaction for buyers and sellers of used vehicles, including real-time appraisals, loan payoffs, at‑home pickup, reconditioning and doorstep delivery. The company says its platform has been used by more than 250,000 buyers and sellers and typically lists about 3,000 vehicles at any time across roughly 400 makes and models. Vroom reports "triple-digit growth in shipped unit sales" since last year. It plans to use new capital to continue scaling the business and to expand a product and engineering hub in Detroit, where it expects to significantly increase staff in 2020 and hire more product and engineering employees. The company is led by former Priceline.com CEO Paul Hennessy and has recently added executives including CFO Dave Jones. Vroom has pursued a disciplined, asset-light approach, partnering for third-party reconditioning while investing in its e-commerce platform. Vroom operates an online platform for buying and selling refurbished, pre-owned cars, purchasing vehicles, listing them in its catalog, and delivering them to customers’ doorsteps in the U.S. The site currently lists just over 3,200 cars and the company says it has sold 250,000 vehicles to date. Vroom provides financing through lending partners including CapitalOne and Ally. Founded in 2013 and led by CEO Paul Hennessy, the company has raised $440 million in equity funding to date. Earlier this year Vroom laid off roughly 30% of its staff and closed its Dallas dealership, leaving a single Houston location as its only in-person retail effort. Since then it has focused on rebuilding leadership, hiring a new CFO, CTO, and chief supply chain officer. Vroom operates a direct-to-consumer online auto retail platform that handles financing, purchase, home delivery and pickup, and a private-seller acquisition service that gives cash offers in minutes. The company offers thousands of low-mileage, reconditioned vehicles (3,000+ noted) that are inspected and largely sold while still under manufacturer warranty. Vroom provides transparent, no-haggle pricing, a 7-day return window and a money-back guarantee. Its national car delivery business is growing at a near triple-digit rate and the company has shipped cars to all 50 states. Under CEO Paul J. Hennessy, Vroom emphasizes a customer-first approach and product adoption at scale. The company is based in New York, Dallas and Houston and has raised $295 million in total equity funding since inception. Vroom operates an online and mobile marketplace to buy and sell pre-owned vehicles, offering home delivery and a seven-day test-drive window. Sellers can upload photos and a VIN via a smartphone app to get a quote and arrange pickup. Vroom uses proprietary algorithms and market data to price vehicles and runs a large repairs and refurbishing operation after acquiring Texas Direct Auto. Its revenue comes from vehicle sales to individual consumers and rental car companies, plus scrap/resale parts, warranties, and arranging auto loans. Leadership expects to expand operations and delivery capabilities nationwide to make car shopping as easy as buying shoes online. The U.S. used-car market context cited in the article exceeds $400 billion annually, with 38.3 million used cars sold in 2015 at an average price of $18,500.