Autonomous vehicle scaleup Wayve is set to trade its shares on the London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) new private markets platform.
The Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System, or Pisces, is the LSEG’s attempt to keep British tech companies on UK soil, following a spate of underperforming IPOs and homegrown startups opting to float abroad.
Wayve, which develops self-driving software, will sell shares on the system next Wednesday, according to reporting from the Financial Times. The company said it had launched an $85m tender offer for employees’ stock, which would be sold via the platform, a person with knowledge told the newspaper.
The company will be the first major UK scaleup to use Pisces, which allows founders, employees and investors to sell shares in private companies on specific days, marking its first big test.
Wayve has been on a fundraising rampage as it gears up to launch its first robotaxi service in London. It raised $1.2bn at an $8.6bn valuation in a February fundraise from the likes of Nvidia, Microsoft and SoftBank, and in April topped that up with $60m from chipmakers AMD, Qualcomm and Arm.
The race to develop and deploy self-driving vehicles around the world has been heating up, with competition from Google’s Waymo in the US and Estonian unicorn Bolt, which partnered with Chinese AI startup Pony AI last year to develop its own autonomous fleet.
Sifted reached out to Wayve for comment.
