Elisa de Martel, formerly chief financial officer at Alphabet's Waymo, has joined self-driving startup Wayve as CFO. The move signals Wayve's transition from development and testing into commercial deployment of robotaxi and passenger vehicle technology.
De Martel spent four years at Waymo starting in 2022, overseeing the autonomous vehicle unit's financial strategy during its most capital-intensive phase. Under her watch, Waymo began commercial robotaxi operations across multiple cities and raised a $5.6 billion Series C led by Alphabet, pushing the unit's valuation above $45 billion.
Wayve, valued at $8.5 billion, has raised $3.2 billion to date. Unlike Waymo's maps-and-sensors approach, Wayve's end-to-end neural network trains vehicles to drive using camera data alone, without high-definition maps or custom hardware. That architectural choice has become its competitive moat with legacy automakers: the software runs on existing vehicle hardware, making it compatible with Nissan, Stellantis, and other partners already locked into supplier ecosystems.
The company operates two product tiers: an assisted-driving system and a fully autonomous system applicable to both robotaxis and consumer vehicles. Wayve has already begun public robotaxi trials in London with a safety operator onboard.
De Martel's appointment matters less for her resume than for what it signals about Wayve's capital needs. Her 11-year tenure in manufacturing finance at Apple and CFO role at industrial 3D printing firm Carbon suggest she understands unit economics, manufacturing scale, and the capital intensity required to move from pilot to volume production.
Max Warburton, Wayve's CFO since 2024, is moving to a strategic advisory role. De Martel will oversee capital allocation, reporting, governance, treasury, and tax functions from Wayve's Sunnyvale office.
