New Zealand-born Kendall and fellow Cambridge University PhD student Amar Shah took their own road when they launched their software developer for driverless cars. At the time most players in this field were feeding rules into computers to account for every possible driving eventuality. By contrast Wayve’s artificial intelligence-powered technology harnesses videos and data from real life to “teach” autonomous vehicles how to drive. This ensures driverless cars and vans can navigate any environment and respond better to surprises, such as a pedestrian straying into traffic. In 2024, Wayve attracted more than $1bn (£830m) of new investment from SoftBank, Microsoft and Nvidia. Although the price put on Kendall’s London-based firm by this fundraising was not made public, an earlier round valued the business at £2.3bn.