TORONTO, Aug. 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Waabi, a company pioneering Physical AI starting with autonomous trucking, today announced that Lior Ron will join the company as its Chief Operating Officer. This strategic hire comes on the back of several milestones for the company and signals Waabi’s accelerating momentum as it prepares to scale its operations and launch fully driverless trucks later this year.
Ron brings transformative leadership experience from the intersection of technology and logistics, spanning product innovation and commercial strategy. For the past decade, he has been Founder and CEO at Uber Freight, where he built the company from inception into an end-to-end logistics platform with over $5 billion in annual revenue. Under his leadership, Uber Freight became one of the most innovative companies transforming the trucking and logistics industry, providing services to 1 in 3 Fortune 500 shippers. The pairing of Lior’s extensive background in building a highly connected, multi-modal freight network with Waabi’s groundbreaking physical AI leadership presents a formidable opportunity to rapidly scale the commercial deployment of autonomous trucks.
“After years of focused development, it is clear that the moment of autonomous trucks has decisively arrived and that this technology, which will drive profound societal change, is ready for commercial prime time. With an unparalleled development advantage and a product that is scalable, cost efficient and safe, Waabi is uniquely positioned to lead in this next era,” said Lior Ron. “I’m thrilled to join Waabi’s world-class team at this pivotal moment to help drive the future of autonomous logistics and deliver its immense value to the world.”
In his new role, Ron will focus on shaping Waabi’s go-to-market strategy and expanding key strategic partnerships, drawing on his extensive experience and proven operational leadership to drive rapid business expansion. He will guide Waabi through the organizational transformation that comes with rapid growth while preserving its innovative edge and positioning the company for successful commercialization at scale.
“Waabi is entering a pivotal new phase as we transition from pioneering our technology to driving commercial adoption in the trucking industry. Lior brings that rare combination of technical expertise, deep industry knowledge, and proven execution — he truly understands the nuances, challenges, and opportunities within trucking, and how breakthrough technology can unlock the industry’s full potential,” said Raquel Urtasun, Founder and CEO of Waabi. “As a leader who has scaled an end-to-end logistics platform from founding to billions of dollars of annual revenue, he will be an invaluable addition to our executive team, enabling us to accelerate our commercialization at scale and bring our autonomous solutions to market in a way that creates real value for our customers and partners.”
Ron joins the company on the back of several major milestones at Waabi. Earlier this year, Waabi announced a strategic partnership with Volvo Autonomous Solutions for the joint development and deployment of autonomous trucks. Waabi also recently announced several technical breakthroughs that have fundamentally reshaped and elevated safety standards for the entire AV industry. These include achieving an unprecedented simulation realism score of 99.7% for Waabi World, the company’s neural simulator, and unveiling Mixed Reality Testing (MRT), a revolutionary alternative to closed-course testing. These advancements have allowed Waabi to move faster, more safely and with unparalleled capital efficiency, enabling the company to achieve feature-complete autonomous driving capabilities at the beginning of this year.
Building on these technical foundations, Waabi has made tremendous progress over the past few years through a number of commercial milestones. In 2023, Waabi and Uber Freight entered a strategic partnership to bring Waabi Driver capacity to the Uber Freight network, committing to deploy billions of miles. Since then the companies have been running regular commercial loads between Dallas and Houston and will continue to work closely, expanding operations and ensuring the technology will have a meaningful impact for shippers and carriers over the long term.
As Waabi transitions into the next commercial stage, the company is equipped with the team, the technology and the momentum to redefine the future of trucking, logistics and beyond.
About Waabi
Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is pioneering physical AI, first by applying this technology to overhaul the autonomous trucking industry. Waabi is backed by best-in-class investors across the technology, AI, automotive, logistics and Canadian innovation ecosystems, including Khosla Ventures, Uber, NVIDIA, Volvo Group Venture Capital, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Scania Invest, Ingka Investments, HarbourVest Partners, BDC, EDC, Radical Ventures, Incharge Capital, and others.
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