The AI race is no longer just about chatbots and large language models. Increasingly, investors are looking beyond software and into the physical world, like robots, autonomous vehicles, factories, mining operations, and food production.
Now, one of Silicon Valley’s most controversial founders is making a massive bet on that future. Travis Kalanick, the founder and former CEO of Uber, has raised $1.7 billion for Atoms, his industrial AI company, in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The investment ranks among the biggest private AI financings this year and marks Kalanick’s return to the center of the technology conversation nearly a decade after his departure from Uber.
The round attracted an impressive list of investors, including Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, A*, K5 Global, Abstract, SV Angel, Alpha Square Group, and notably, Uber itself, reconnecting with the company Kalanick founded before stepping down in 2017. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz will also join Atoms’ board.
From Uber to the “Age of Atoms”
Atoms is not an entirely new company. It is the evolution of CloudKitchens, the ghost kitchen business Kalanick built after leaving Uber, combined with Pronto, the industrial automation startup led by former Uber executive Anthony Levandowski that Atoms acquired earlier this year.
The company now operates across three core businesses: Atoms Food; automation for food production, Atoms Mining; autonomous systems for mining operations, and Atoms Transport; industrial and autonomous transportation. Kalanick describes Atoms as the culmination of a journey that began with Uber.
"Fuel to complete the bits-to-atoms story arc we started at Uber, continued at CloudKitchens and will now finish at Atoms."
Rather than building software that digitizes industries, Atoms wants to build the physical infrastructure that powers them. For many investors, Atoms represents something bigger than another robotics startup.
Kristina Shen, Managing Partner at venture capital firm Chemistry, said in her Linkedin post, that the investment is the largest in her firm’s history. According to Shen, the next wave of AI won’t be defined by digital assistants; it will be measured by how AI changes manufacturing, logistics and heavy industry.
"The next chapter of AI will be defined by its impact on the physical world—how we build things, make things, and move around."
She argues that transformative companies emerge when three factors align: an exceptional founding team, perfect market timing, and an enormous addressable market. In Atoms’ case, she believes all three are present.
Besides Kalanick, the leadership team includes Anthony Levandowski, widely regarded as one of the pioneers of autonomous vehicles, and Gautam Gupta, Uber’s former finance executive who helped steer the company through its hypergrowth years before becoming CFO at Opendoor. “The robots are reporting for work,” Shen wrote after announcing Chemistry’s participation in the round.
A different vision for robotics
While much of the robotics industry has been captivated by humanoid robots, Atoms is taking another route. Ben Horowitz believes specialized robots, not general-purpose humanoids, will create value first.
Instead of trying to build a robot capable of doing everything, Atoms focuses on robots designed for specific industrial tasks: preparing meals, transporting goods, operating mining equipment, automating industrial workflows. The approach echoes what Uber did for transportation: use software to dramatically increase productivity within existing industries rather than reinvent them from scratch. As Horowitz puts it, the opportunity lies in making “everything and everyone more productive.”
Riding the physical AI wave
According to Dealroom data, global robotics funding reached $55.8 billion through early June 2026, already nearly double the previous annual record. Industrial AI has rapidly become one of venture capital’s hottest investment themes as breakthroughs in AI models combine with advances in robotics, sensors and autonomous systems.
The sector is attracting founders, investors and major corporations alike, with companies racing to commercialize AI beyond the digital world. Tesla’s Optimus robot program has helped popularize the idea of humanoid robots, but Atoms is betting that specialized machines solving real industrial problems will reach meaningful adoption much sooner.
The comeback story isn’t complete
Despite the enormous funding round, many questions remain. Atoms has yet to disclose its valuation, commercial traction or detailed product roadmap. The company also hasn’t revealed how much debt financing accompanies the equity investment, despite listing several major banking partners, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Barclays, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
And Kalanick himself remains one of Silicon Valley’s most polarizing founders. His resignation from Uber in 2017 followed allegations of a toxic workplace culture and intense pressure from investors. Nearly a decade later, Atoms represents both a new company and an opportunity to redefine his legacy.
