Waymo Borrowed $5 Billion. Applied Intuition Is Fielding Offers at $30 Billion.

Good morning, Mason here,

This was a week for borrowing.

Waymo took out its first loan ever, and it was $5 billion.

Lambda is raising up to $4 billion right after borrowing another $1 billion.

Stord asked banks for a credit line and got offered nearly twice what it wanted.

Meanwhile, the equity investors went after the big stories, like offers valuing a self-driving software company at $30 billion.

Six deals. Two kinds of money.

Lenders want proof. Equity investors are happy with a story.

Read time: 5 mins

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FOLLOW THE MONEY

A simulated drive in Applied Intuition's software. Image: Applied Intuition

The Information reported Tuesday that Applied Intuition has offers that value it at $30 billion or more. That could turn into a round of $1 billion or more in the next few months. Nothing is signed yet.

Here's what makes this one interesting. Applied Intuition doesn't build cars or run robotaxis. It sells the software underneath them: simulation, driving software and vehicle operating systems. It says 18 of the world's 20 biggest automakers use it, and it's been pushing hard into trucking, mining and defense.

Qasar Younis, the former COO of Y Combinator, and Peter Ludwig, an ex-Google product manager, started it in 2017. Last June it raised $600 million at $15 billion, led by BlackRock-managed funds and Kleiner Perkins. So we're talking about a double in roughly 16 months.

Revenue is the part I'd want to see. The Information previously reported about $400 million in annual recurring revenue at the end of 2024, and nothing has been confirmed since. A $30 billion price only works if that figure has grown a lot.

Inside one of Lambda's data centers. Photo: Lambda

According to The Wall Street Journal, Coatue and Blackstone are leading a round of up to $4 billion in Lambda, the GPU cloud, at a $14.5 billion pre-money valuation. It could be the last private round before an IPO that has slipped to 2027.

The backlog is what's driving it. Lambda told investors its contracted backlog went from $15 billion in June to $50 billion in September. Most of that jump is one deal: a $35 billion Anthropic contract that The Wall Street Journal reported in late August. Neither company has announced it.

And this isn't only equity. The week before, Lambda also raised $1 billion in senior secured debt. Last November it raised more than $1.5 billion in a Series E.

Here's my issue. When roughly 70 percent of your backlog is one customer, you're really making a bet on that customer. Lambda's valuation now depends a lot on Anthropic being able to keep paying.

A Waymo robotaxi in San Francisco. Photo: Dllu via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Waymo closed a $5 billion term loan last Thursday. It's the first time the company has borrowed. PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street led it, Goldman Sachs ran the books, and Apollo, Blue Owl, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Oaktree were all in.

It started smaller. Waymo first went out for more than $3 billion in early September, and demand pushed it to $5 billion. Bloomberg says it priced at 5.25 percentage points over the benchmark rate.

The equity side is already huge. In February Waymo raised $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation. Las Vegas became its 15th U.S. city in September, Munich is planned for 2027 and Singapore for 2028.

Why borrow at all? Robotaxis are expensive physical assets, and debt is cheaper than selling more of the company. Lenders don't take a chance on stories. When they write a $5 billion check, they think the rides keep coming.

Oxide's rack-scale cloud computers. Photo: Oxide Computer Company

Oxide, the Emeryville company that builds full cloud computers for companies to run in their own data centers, raised a $445 million Series D led by Eclipse. Jane Street, USIT and Riot Ventures came back, and Atreides Management and AMD joined. Forbes reportedly put the valuation at $6 billion.

My favorite line from their announcement: "Oxide paid income tax." That happened for the first time this spring, from normal operations. For a hardware startup that's seven years old, that's rare.

So why raise? Hardware companies pay for chips and manufacturing long before customers pay them. CEO Steve Tuck says manufacturing capacity is up about 20 times in 12 months and demand is still ahead of supply. Most of this money goes into inventory and filling orders. It also comes only eight months after a $200 million Series C.

Stord co-founders Sean Henry and Jacob Boudreau. Photo: Stord

Stord, the Atlanta fulfillment company, closed a $400 million credit facility led by Citi, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, First Citizens, Citizens and KeyBank. Stord says it was oversubscribed at nearly twice what it originally went out for.

Bought something from a direct-to-consumer brand lately? Good odds Stord packed the box. It's got close to 100 fulfillment sites and over 1,000 brands, and more than $15 billion of merchandise moves through it every year. Sean Henry, the CEO, wants to spend the money on more space, robots and AI tools.

This is the cheapest company in the issue. Earlier this year Stord raised $250 million at a $3 billion valuation, and it says it's nearing a $1 billion revenue run rate. That's about 3 times revenue. Nobody's calling it a hype company, and that's kind of the point.

Image: Nous Research

Nous Research makes Hermes Agent, an open-source AI agent, and it just closed a $90 million Series B. Robot Ventures led. Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo and Samsung got in too. The Journal put the price at $1.5 billion. Total raised so far: $158 million.

Hermes is free and open source, and Nous estimates it's been cloned more than 24 million times since its February release. The new money is for Hermes for Businesses, a paid version that lets companies run agents privately and pick which models they use.

Now the numbers. The Journal reported about $36 million in annualized revenue as of mid-September, so $1.5 billion is roughly 42 times that. Nous expects to pass $100 million by year-end. If it does, this price looks fine. If it misses, a big chunk of that $1.5 billion was really paying for downloads.

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THE PATTERN: FOLLOW THE LENDERS

Six deals, and you can sort them by the kind of money that showed up.

Debt went to companies with something to lend against: Waymo's rides, Stord's warehouses and Lambda's contracts. In two of those three cases, lenders gave more than the company first asked for.

Equity went to the bigger stories: Applied Intuition at $30 billion or more, and Nous at 42 times revenue. Oxide is somewhere in the middle. It's profitable, and it still needed equity because hardware eats cash before it makes money.

Look at the multiples. Stord is at about 3 times revenue. Nous is at about 42. Lambda's price is really a bet on one customer, and Applied Intuition has no confirmed revenue figure since 2024.

The pattern: for the right borrowers, lenders are fighting to get in. Waymo's loan grew from $3 billion to $5 billion while it was being put together, and Stord's facility was close to twice oversubscribed. That only happens when lenders think the cash flow is real.

For investors: Don't only look at who's buying the equity.

Look at who's willing to lend.

Mason's take: Debt is the most honest signal in private markets right now. A VC can talk itself into almost any valuation, but a lender has to get paid back. This week the lenders picked robotaxis, warehouses and GPU contracts. I'd pay attention to that.

Founderscrowd Newsletter | Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | Follow the lenders

$5B borrowed by Waymo. $30B valuation offers for Applied Intuition. 3x for Stord, 42x for Nous.