The archive · Logistics & Supply · Product decision · 2018–2025
Vay's teledriving bet: remote drivers beat full autonomy; Grab commits up to $410M
Berlin's Vay used remote human teledrivers instead of full self-driving; after Vegas and Belgium launches, Grab committed up to $410M in Nov 2025.
Vay
What the business is
A Berlin-based teledriving company that lets trained remote drivers steer rental EVs to users' doors and park them afterward, operating door-to-door car sharing in the US and Europe.
Starting capital：$95M Series B from Kinnevik, Coatue, Eurazeo, Atomico, La Famiglia and Creandum, plus a €34M EIB venture loan in 2024; Grab committed $60M in November 2025 with up to $350M more tied to milestones.
How it started
Founded in Berlin in 2018 by Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic, Vay bet that the bottleneck in driverless mobility was regulation and cost, not software. In February 2023 it became the first company in Europe to drive a car on public roads with no one inside; by November 2023 it repeated the feat in Las Vegas.
What happened
Vay launched its first commercial teledriving service in Las Vegas in January 2024 and Europe's first commercial remote-driven service in Belgium in January 2025. The European Investment Bank lent it €34M in October 2024 under the InvestEU program. On 10 November 2025 Grab announced a $60M investment, with up to $350M more if Vay hits milestones within a year, to fund expansion in the US.
How it ended up
As of late 2025 Vay is live in two markets and scaling: Grab's commitment can take total backing to $410M, and co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe says the plan is to deploy tens of thousands of shared, electric, driverless vehicles.
Background
Vay was founded in Berlin in 2018 by Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic on a contrarian bet: the fastest route to driverless mobility was not perfect self-driving software but remote human drivers. Trained teledrivers steer cars from stations with wheel, pedals and cameras, delivering an EV to a customer who then drives it themselves.
The approach passed real-world tests early: in February 2023 Vay became the first company in Europe to operate a car on public roads with no one inside, in Hamburg, and by November 2023 it had done the same in Las Vegas. It raised a $95M Series B from Kinnevik, Coatue, Eurazeo, Atomico, La Famiglia and Creandum, then launched its first commercial service in Las Vegas in January 2024.
In October 2024 the European Investment Bank lent Vay €34M under InvestEU to build services across Europe, and in January 2025 Vay launched Europe's first commercial remote-driven service in Belgium. The model is roughly half the cost of traditional ride services, according to the EIB, because cars are delivered, parked and re-routed remotely instead of waiting for a driver.
On 10 November 2025 Grab, Southeast Asia's ride-hailing super-app, announced a $60M investment with an option for up to $350M more if Vay meets milestones within a year — a potential $410M endorsement. CEO von der Ohe framed the capital as fuel to deploy tens of thousands of shared, electric, driverless vehicles across the US and Europe.
What has to be true
- Vay inverted the autonomy roadmap: instead of replacing the driver with software, it moved the driver to a remote station, shrinking cost, regulation and safety risk at once.
- The company proved the concept in public-road firsts — Hamburg in February 2023, Las Vegas later that year — turning regulatory milestones into marketing and investor credibility.
- Its capital strategy matched the product: venture debt from the EIB funded European rollout, then a strategic investor with a mobility fleet (Grab) committed milestone-based money for US scale.
- The bet stayed open through 2025: Vay still relies on humans in the loop, so unit economics depend on teledriver labor costs rather than on autonomy capex.
What can be applied
Attack the bottleneck rivals ignore: Vay swapped full autonomy's impossible engineering problem for manageable operations — remote humans — and turned the compromise into a product.
Aftermath
As of September 2026 Vay is a Berlin-based scale-up with offices in Hamburg and Las Vegas and more than 150 employees, running commercial teledriving services in Las Vegas (since January 2024) and Belgium (since January 2025). Grab's $60M investment closed in November 2025 with a milestone-based option for up to $350M more, and the company says it plans to deploy tens of thousands of shared, electric, driverless vehicles. No further funding or revenue figures are public in the sources reviewed.
Sources
- Now in Las Vegas, Nevada: Vay becomes the first company to drive cars without a person inside on public roads in Europe and the US
- Deutschland: EIB fördert ferngesteuertes Carsharing von Vay
- Remote driving startup Vay set to raise $410m from Singapore's Grab
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