Canadian Autonomous Trucking Startup Waabi Eyes NASDAQ IPO at $3B Valuation

Key Takeaways

• Waabi is preparing a NASDAQ IPO at an estimated $3–4B valuation in late 2026.
• The Toronto-based autonomous trucking company has 200+ commercial deployments in Texas.
• Waabi’s AI-first approach requires significantly less real-world training data than competitors.
• The IPO would be Canada’s largest AI company listing since Cohere’s Series D round.

Waabi, the Toronto-based autonomous trucking company founded by Raquel Urtasun formerly head of Uber ATG and the University of Toronto’s Vector Institute is preparing for a NASDAQ listing at a targeted valuation of $3 billion. The company’s Waabi Driver platform uses a generative AI architecture that it claims requires 1,000x less training data than competing autonomous systems.

The commercial milestone that underpins the IPO ambition: Waabi Driver is operating on a live freight lane between Dallas and Laredo, Texas, hauling loads for Loblaw’s U.S. distribution network. The system runs without a safety driver on a 500-kilometer highway corridor, completing the route in 5.5 hours faster than human drivers who are subject to hours-of-service regulations.

The autonomous trucking market is enormous an estimated $800 billion in U.S. long-haul freight annually but the path to monetization is narrow. Waabi’s only direct public comparable is TuSimple, which has struggled. Aurora Innovation, backed by Uber and Amazon, remains the strongest competitor and is already public on NASDAQ.

Canadian investors considering the IPO should weigh Waabi’s technical leadership, Urtasun’s credibility in the AI community, and its Canadian government support against the execution risk of scaling autonomous freight operations. The regulatory environment in Canada remains more permissive than the U.S., giving Waabi an option on north-of-the-border expansion.

IPO Mechanics and Valuation Framework

Waabi’s S-1 filing, submitted confidentially in May 2026, is expected to be made public within the next 30 days. Sources familiar with the filing indicate the company is targeting a valuation range of $4–6 billion USD, implying a revenue multiple of 15–22x on estimated forward ARR from its trucking software licensing agreements. The lead underwriters are Goldman Sachs and RBC Capital Markets the latter’s inclusion signals the company’s desire to maintain strong Canadian investor relations post-listing.

Unlike hardware-centric AV peers, Waabi’s AI-first approach uses a generative world model to simulate billions of driving scenarios rather than requiring millions of real-world miles. This reduces the capital intensity of training dramatically and allows rapid adaptation to new geographies. The approach, developed under CEO Raquel Urtasun formerly chief scientist at Uber ATG and a University of Toronto professor has attracted Uber Freight as both a strategic investor and a launch commercial partner.