Former Waymo CFO jumps to self-driving startup Wayve
Former Waymo CFO jumps to self-driving startup Wayve
前 Waymo 首席财务官跳槽至自动驾驶初创公司 Wayve
Elisa de Martel, who was chief financial officer at Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle company Waymo, has been hired to the same position at buzzy self-driving vehicle startup Wayve. Outgoing CFO Max Warburton, who held the position at Wayve since 2024, is moving into a strategic advisory role supporting the company’s leadership team. 曾任 Alphabet 旗下自动驾驶公司 Waymo 首席财务官（CFO）的 Elisa de Martel 已被聘为热门自动驾驶初创公司 Wayve 的同职。自 2024 年起担任 Wayve CFO 的 Max Warburton 即将离任，转而担任战略顾问，为公司领导团队提供支持。
Her appointment as CFO comes as Wayve moves from development and testing to a company on the verge of deploying its automated driving technology on two fronts: robotaxis and passenger vehicles. De Martel, who will be based out of Sunnyvale, California, has a history of working for tech companies, including as CFO at industrial-grade 3D printing company Carbon and an 11-year stint as manufacturing finance director at Apple. 在 Wayve 从开发和测试阶段转向即将部署自动驾驶技术的关键时刻，De Martel 被任命为 CFO。该公司的技术部署涵盖两个领域：自动驾驶出租车（Robotaxi）和乘用车。De Martel 将常驻加利福尼亚州桑尼维尔，她拥有丰富的科技公司工作经验，曾担任工业级 3D 打印公司 Carbon 的 CFO，并在苹果公司担任了 11 年的制造财务总监。
She was CFO at Waymo from 2022 to January 2026 — a critical period for the company as it began to commercially operate in several cities and raised $5.6 billion in a Series C fundraising round that was led by its parent company and pushed its valuation to more than $45 billion. Wayve now sits in a similarly pivotal moment. 她于 2022 年至 2026 年 1 月期间担任 Waymo 的 CFO，这是该公司发展的关键时期，期间 Waymo 开始在多个城市进行商业化运营，并完成了由母公司领投的 56 亿美元 C 轮融资，估值超过 450 亿美元。Wayve 目前也正处于类似的转折点。
The startup, which was founded in 2017 and is now valued at about $8.5 billion, attracted investors and automotive customers for its self-learning approach to its automated driving software. The company developed a software layer using an end-to-end neural network that doesn’t rely on high-definition maps, custom hardware, or hand-coded rules and only uses data to teach the vehicle how to drive. 这家成立于 2017 年的初创公司目前估值约为 85 亿美元，其自动驾驶软件的“自学习”方法吸引了众多投资者和汽车客户。该公司开发了一种基于端到端神经网络的软件层，不依赖高精地图、定制硬件或人工编写的规则，仅通过数据来训练车辆如何驾驶。
The company’s tech is the basis of two products: an “eyes on” assisted-driving system and an “eyes off” fully automated-driving system, which could be applied to robotaxis or consumer vehicles that can handle all of the driving in certain environments. Wayve’s pitch, and the agnostic nature of its technology, has resonated with automakers already locked into certain hardware. 该公司的技术是两款产品的基础：一套“注视（eyes on）”辅助驾驶系统和一套“脱手（eyes off）”全自动驾驶系统。后者可应用于自动驾驶出租车或在特定环境下能够处理所有驾驶任务的消费级车辆。Wayve 的理念及其技术的通用性，引起了那些已经锁定特定硬件的汽车制造商的共鸣。
It’s also attracted investors — Wayve has raised $3.2 billion to date — and companies like Uber that want to use a more capable version of the self-driving tech to deploy robotaxis. 这也吸引了投资者（Wayve 迄今已筹集 32 亿美元）以及像 Uber 这样希望利用更强大的自动驾驶技术来部署自动驾驶出租车的公司。
While de Martel has a well-documented career in top financial posts, it was her connection to deep tech that was particularly attractive to Wayve’s leadership, including founder and CEO Alex Kendall, according to insiders who asked not to be named. As CFO at Wayve, she will oversee financial strategy and planning, capital allocation, reporting, governance, treasury, and tax. 据不愿透露姓名的知情人士称，尽管 de Martel 在顶级财务岗位上的职业生涯有目共睹，但她与深科技（deep tech）的渊源对包括创始人兼首席执行官 Alex Kendall 在内的 Wayve 领导层尤具吸引力。作为 Wayve 的 CFO，她将负责财务战略与规划、资本配置、报告、治理、财务管理和税务工作。
The company said she will also work closely with Wayve’s executive team to support and advise on commercial, investor, and strategic partnership deals. Wayve has locked in a number of partnerships with automakers, including Nissan and Stellantis. 公司表示，她还将与 Wayve 的执行团队密切合作，为商业、投资者和战略合作伙伴关系交易提供支持和建议。Wayve 已与包括日产（Nissan）和斯特兰蒂斯（Stellantis）在内的多家汽车制造商达成了合作。
The company has also made progress on the automated vehicle driving systems for robotaxis; the company recently launched public rides in London — with a human safety operator on board — and Tokyo is expected to follow soon. Now the company has to push past this historically precarious point of early and limited deployment and into a high-volume supplier to automotive. 该公司在自动驾驶出租车的自动驾驶系统方面也取得了进展；最近在伦敦推出了公共乘车服务（车上配有安全员），预计东京也将很快跟进。现在，该公司必须跨越早期有限部署这一历史上不稳定的阶段，转型成为汽车行业的大规模供应商。