LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - British self-driving startup Wayve said on Wednesday it has raised $1.2 billion from investors including Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Nissan and Uber as it scales up robotaxi deployments and works with global automakers on driver assistance technology.

Wayve said that including "additional milestone-based" investments from Uber, it has secured $1.5 billion in funding with this round, bringing its total raised so far to $2.8 billion and boosting its valuation to $8.6 billion.

The Series D investment also included funding from Nvida, Microsoft

Wayve CEO Alex Kendall told Reuters the startup still has the "vast majority of the capital" from its last $1.05 billion funding round in 2024, which was led by Softbank Group.

"We have a war chest... that demonstrates that we've got strength of balance sheet to not just launch products but maintain them in the market for decades," Kendall said.

The funding announcement comes amid renewed investor interest in autonomous vehicles as chipmaker Nvidia and others insist that AI has brought truly self-driving cars within reach.

Developing robotaxis has proven harder than expected, with automakers including General Motors, Ford and Stellantis bailing on vastly expensive efforts to develop self-driving cars.

Wayve has only announced one robotaxi deployment so far for this year, with Uber in London, where U.S. robotaxi company Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, also plans to launch.

Kendall said Wayve will roll out robotaxi deployments with Uber in 10 cities globally in 2026, though he declined to say which cities.

Last month, Uber said it will deploy robotaxis in up to 15 cities globally by the end of 2026 and expand services to Madrid, Hong Kong, Houston and Zurich, with Hong Kong set to be its first autonomous ride market in Asia.

Wayve is also providing its driver assistance and self-driving technology to a number of automakers.

Nissan announced last year it was testing a new driver-assistance system using Wayve technology that should launch in Japan in the automaker's 2027 financial year.

Wayve is also working with Mercedes and Stellantis on "consumer and robotaxi applications," Kendall said.

"This is a chance for us to deepen our strategic partnerships with Stellantis and Mercedes," he said.

He declined to say which other automakers Wayve is working with.

"The future is that every vehicle is going to be autonomous," Kendall said. "We provide the intelligence platform for automakers to build the products they dream of."

He said that an initial public offering is still the company's long-term plan.

"But we clearly need to do a lot of work to earn the right to have that conversation," Kendall said.

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Susan Fenton)

By Nick Carey