Travis Kalanick Raised $1.7 Billion for Robots. Uber Chipped In.

The Los Angeles company, formerly City Storage Systems and parent of CloudKitchens, now runs three arms: food, mining and transport.

Atoms, the Los Angeles industrial robotics company run by Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick, raised a $1.7 billion equity investment led by Andreessen Horowitz. Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and Uber joined the round, dot.LA reported on July 24, 2026. Atoms' valuation wasn't disclosed.

The headquarters is here, and so is the target list. Atoms says it's going after mining, construction, food production and heavy transportation — the work now done by people in kitchens, quarries, warehouses and truck cabs. The bet behind the Andreessen Horowitz check, the outlet reported, is that robotics will take over the repetitive end of making, hauling and storing goods.

This isn't a company starting from zero. It's the reorganized version of City Storage Systems, the parent of the ghost-kitchen operator CloudKitchens, now split into three arms: Atoms Food, Atoms Mining and Atoms Transport.

Kalanick's pitch is that the next phase of artificial intelligence won't live on a screen. He calls what he's building a “computer for the physical world” — sensors, software and machines pointed at how goods get made, stored and moved, according to dot.LA. Rather than general-purpose humanoid robots, the company is building specialized machines for narrow, paying jobs.

Ben Horowitz, who cofounded Andreessen Horowitz, is joining the Atoms board. He also published an essay on the deal titled “Travis Is Back,” which makes the case that Kalanick has both the engineering range and the stubbornness such heavy, older industries would demand of anyone trying to modernize them, the outlet reported.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America are listed among the deal's debt partners.

How much debt, and on what terms, wasn't announced.

Kalanick, Horowitz and Marc Andreessen came close to working together during Uber's early years and never closed it, dot.LA reported. This time Horowitz has the board seat, and the check cleared in Los Angeles.

Source: dot.la, retrieved September 13, 2026.