Wayve has appointed former Waymo CFO Elisa de Martel as Chief Financial Officer as the autonomous driving technology company moves into a larger commercialization phase across automotive and robotaxi markets.
De Martel brings more than two decades of financial leadership experience across technology and automotive companies and will oversee Wayve’s global finance organization from Sunnyvale, California.
She most recently served as CFO of Waymo, where she led financial strategy and capital planning while the autonomous driving company expanded from a pre-revenue operation to hundreds of thousands of weekly trips across five U.S. cities.
De Martel also led Waymo’s $5.6 billion Series C financing.
Before Waymo, she served as CFO of industrial 3D printing company Carbon, where she led a $260 million Series D financing, helped grow revenue beyond $100 million and improved gross margin by more than 60%.
Earlier in her career, de Martel spent more than a decade in senior finance positions at Apple, including manufacturing finance, and also held roles at Citroën UK and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The appointment comes as Wayve accelerates commercialization of its Wayve AI Driver.
Wayve describes the platform as a single end-to-end AI system designed to operate across different vehicles, markets and product categories without relying on high-definition maps, extensive hand-coded rules or custom hardware.
That model is central to what Wayve calls AV2.0, its approach to building autonomous driving systems through generalized AI rather than developing separate highly customized stacks for individual cities or vehicles.
De Martel’s experience financing and scaling Waymo gives Wayve an executive familiar with the capital requirements and operating challenges involved in moving autonomous driving technology from R&D toward widespread commercial deployment.
Wayve has raised $1.2 billion over the past year and formed partnerships with companies including Uber, Nissan, Stellantis and Qualcomm.
The company has also launched public autonomous rides in London and plans to bring rides to Tokyo.
Max Warburton, who has served as Wayve’s CFO since 2024, will transition into a strategic advisory role supporting the leadership team.
Wayve ultimately plans to deploy its AI Driver across millions of vehicles spanning both consumer automotive and mobility applications.
KEY QUOTES:
“AV2.0 is an innovative, capital-efficient approach to autonomy, and I’m looking forward to scaling the AI Driver globally with our team and partners.”
Elisa de Martel, Incoming Chief Financial Officer of Wayve
“I couldn’t be more excited about the experience and passion Elisa brings in autonomy and deep tech, and I look forward to partnering with her to scale the company as we launch the Wayve AI Driver in millions of vehicles across the automotive and mobility industry.”
Alex Kendall, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayve
