Travis Kalanick’s robotics company raises $1.7B, led by a16z

11:50 AM PDT · July 22, 2026

Travis Kalanick’s robotics company, Atoms, has raised $1.7 billion in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Ben Horowitz will join the company’s board following the investment.

Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and others participated in the round. Uber also joined the funding round, reconnecting Kalanick with the company he founded — and the same company that pushed him out as CEO in 2017.

Atoms is essentially a rebranded holding company atop the project Kalanick has worked on since leaving Uber (Cloud Kitchens / City Storage Systems). When he revealed the new name in March, Kalanick announced he had acquired Pronto, the heavy industry automation company run by former Uber colleague Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick has also said he wants to get into mining with Atoms, beyond what Pronto already does for vehicles in that industry. Talks about buying Pony AI’s U.S. arm with Uber backing were reported to have ended.

In a post on X about the fundraise, Kalanick wrote: “On many levels, this round is a bit of unfinished business. Fuel to complete the bits-to-atoms story arc we started at Uber, continued at CloudKitchens and will now finish at Atoms… Building ‘atoms-based’ computers where CPU is manufacturing, storage is real estate, and network is transportation.” He has said he wants to build a “wheelbase for robots” with Atoms.

Ben Horowitz posted “Travis Is Back,” arguing Atoms will make people more productive in the physical world via AI and robotics. Funding is expected to go substantially toward hiring.