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Former Waymo CFO Elisa de Martel joins self-driving startup Wayve
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Wayve has appointed former Waymo CFO Elisa de Martel to lead its financial strategy as the company prepares to deploy automated driving technology.
Wayve is transitioning from development and testing to deploying robotaxis and passenger vehicles. De Martel brings experience from Waymo's commercial expansion and a $5.6 billion Series C round to a company currently valued at about $8.5 billion.
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Elisa de Martel replaces Max Warburton, who is moving into a strategic advisory role.
Wayve utilizes an end-to-end neural network that avoids hand-coded rules, custom hardware, and high-definition maps.
The company has established partnerships with Stellantis and Nissan and has launched public rides in London.
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Wayve has hired Elisa de Martel as CFO to oversee capital allocation, treasury, tax, and financial reporting. De Martel previously served as CFO at Waymo from 2022 to January 2026 and held a finance director role at Apple for 11 years. She will be based in Sunnyvale, California, and will advise on strategic partnership and investor deals.
The appointment occurs as Wayve attempts to scale from limited deployment to becoming a high-volume automotive supplier. The company's technology is hardware-agnostic, offering both an assisted-driving system and a fully automated system. This approach has attracted interest from Uber and various automakers already committed to specific hardware.
Wayve's technical stack differs from traditional autonomous systems by relying solely on data to teach vehicles how to drive. By removing the need for high-definition maps and hand-coded rules, the software can be applied to different environments. The company has already raised $3.2 billion to date to support this self-learning approach.
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