Waymo has closed a $5bn term loan, the first debt it has raised. PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street led the lending group, with Capital Group, Loomis Sayles and T. Rowe Price named as significant lenders and Goldman Sachs as sole lead bookrunner. Chief financial officer Steve Fieler announced it on 8 October.
The loan follows a $16bn equity raise earlier this year. Waymo says the money will fund the expansion of its fully driverless ride-hailing service in the US and internationally. It launched in its fifteenth US city last month and has announced plans abroad, including Tokyo and Singapore.
Why it matters: lenders, unlike venture investors, expect to be repaid on a schedule, so a loan of this size suggests large credit funds now see enough of a business behind the robotaxis to lend against it. That is a shift from autonomy as a pure research bet. What the post leaves out is just as telling: no interest rate, no term, no security and no revenue figures, so it is not possible to say how much of the lenders’ confidence rests on Waymo itself and how much on its parent, Alphabet.