Atoms secures $1.7 billion in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz
The round signals a renewed connection between Kalanick and Uber, as the company aims to apply industrial AI and robotics to heavy sectors including mining and manufacturing.
Travis Kalanick’s robotics venture, Atoms, has closed a $1.7 billion funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The investment brings Ben Horowitz onto the company’s board and includes participation from Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and Uber. The deal marks a significant reconnection between Kalanick and Uber, the company he founded and was forced to step down from in 2017 following allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and a toxic workplace culture.
Atoms operates as a rebranded holding company built upon Kalanick’s previous venture, Cloud Kitchens. The firm intends to utilise industrial artificial intelligence and robotics to modernise heavy industries, with specific ambitions to expand into the mining sector. This strategy builds upon the acquisition of Pronto, a heavy industry automation company run by former Uber colleague Anthony Levandowski, which Kalanick announced in March alongside the reveal of the Atoms name.
Kalanick characterised the funding as “unfinished business” designed to complete a “bits-to-atoms story arc” that began at Uber and continued through Cloud Kitchens. In a statement on X, he described a 16-year journey to digitise the physical world, proposing a model where manufacturing serves as the CPU, real estate acts as storage, and transportation functions as the network. He stated his objective is to build a “wheelbase for robots” capable of understanding, predicting, and controlling the physical environment through software.
Ben Horowitz, who will join the Atoms board, described the company’s mission as increasing productivity in the physical world. He compared the potential impact of Atoms to Uber’s disruption of the transportation sector, noting that the most valuable application of AI and robotics is to make everything and everyone more productive. Horowitz praised Kalanick’s range across domains, citing the need for a gritty work ethic and expertise spanning software architecture to mechanical engineering to transform old-school industries.
While Kalanick did not disclose specific operational details in his announcement, he indicated that a significant portion of the capital would be directed towards hiring. He referred to these new hires as “changemakers” and “builders” who would face resistance from “Nature and its fierce resistance to change.” The funding follows reports from earlier this year that talks regarding Kalanick’s interest in acquiring the US arm of Chinese self-driving vehicle company Pony AI, backed by Uber, had ended.
