Travis Kalanick’s Atoms raises $1.7B to build robotics and industrial automation

创业邦 · wechat · 2026-07-25

Travis Kalanick is back with a new bet on the physical world.

His robotics and industrial automation company Atoms raised $1.7 billion in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz; a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz will join the board.
The investor group also includes Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, K5 Global, SV Angel, and Alpha Square Group, while Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Barclays participated as debt partners.
Uber itself joined the financing, a striking reversal given that the company helped force Kalanick out as CEO in 2017.
The article traces Kalanick’s path from Uber to CloudKitchens and now Atoms, where he is trying to use software, AI, and automation to reorganize food production, mining, and transportation.
Atoms is structured around three lines: Atoms Food for automated kitchens, Atoms Mining for autonomous industrial vehicles and equipment, and Atoms Transport as a mobility platform for industrial robots.
The piece argues that this is a much harder road than internet software: robots must survive real-world reliability, supply-chain, cost, safety, and adoption hurdles, which makes the funding both a vote of confidence and a major test.

More from Venture