Travis Kalanick’s Atoms robotaxi plans are coming into focus, with the Financial Times reporting that the startup has held talks with Uber about how the ride-hailing giant could deploy its autonomous vehicle technology, while simultaneously preparing for a hiring spree and targeted acquisitions.
The news puts a sharper point on what Kalanick has called ‘unfinished business.’ Atoms raised a $1.7 billion equity round earlier this summer, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional backers including Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, A\, K5 Global, Abstract, SV Angel, and Alpha Square Group. At the time, Kalanick was deliberately vague about the company’s direction.
He is being less vague now. According to the Financial Times, Atoms has approached Uber directly about integrating its robotaxi capabilities into Uber’s platform. Uber has invested $100 million in Atoms, a figure previously confirmed by TechCrunch. The two companies share more than capital: TechCrunch reported that Ben Horowitz, the Andreessen Horowitz co-founder leading the investment, will join Atoms’ board.
A Physical-AI Empire Built Around Atoms Robotaxi Technology
Kalanick has described Atoms as a ‘consolidated physical AI holding company,’ one that merges his earlier ghost kitchen venture, CloudKitchens, with newly acquired industrial-autonomy businesses. According to funding reports, the company intends to use the capital to scale task-specific machine learning hardware and accelerate industrial AI deployments across global distribution and heavy-industry networks.
The company is structured around three divisions: Atoms Food, focused on food infrastructure; Atoms Mining, anchored by its acquisition of Pronto; and Atoms Transport, described as a ‘wheelbase for robots.’ Sources close to the company emphasised that robotaxis represent one thread of a larger strategy, not the whole cloth.
Pronto’s backstory adds depth to the Atoms robotaxi ambitions. Founded in 2018, Pronto became the first system to drive coast-to-coast from San Francisco to New York City without a single driver input in its founding year. Before its acquisition by Atoms, Pronto had itself acquired SafeAI Inc., a safety-focused autonomous solutions firm for heavy industry, and had secured a global agreement to deploy more than 100 autonomous trucks with Heidelberg Materials, hauling over two million tons autonomously at the company’s Lake Bridgeport quarry in Texas.
In April 2026, Pronto announced an expansion of autonomous haulage across two new Heidelberg Materials sites, with Atoms’ backing cited as a catalyst. The Pronto acquisition positions Atoms Mining as the division with the most established commercial footprint of the three.
The Stealth Years and the Uber Connection
What makes Atoms unusual among well-funded AI startups is how long it operated in the dark. The company was previously known as City Storage Systems and spent approximately eight years in stealth. Kalanick has said that ’employees were not allowed to put the name of the company on their LinkedIn’ and that the business already employs thousands of people.
The Uber angle carries its own history. Uber sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020 and repositioned itself as an aggregator of third-party AV solutions, now offering robotaxi services in four US cities as well as in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh, working with firms including Waymo and WeRide for fleet operations. Kalanick founded Uber’s original self-driving programme before being ousted as chief executive in 2017; his return to the same competitive space, with Uber as a paying investor and potential customer, is the kind of structural irony that rarely needs embellishment.
Pronto was led by Anthony Levandowski, Uber’s former self-driving chief, who was convicted of stealing trade secrets, sentenced to 18 months in prison, and subsequently pardoned by President Donald Trump. Kalanick has now folded Levandowski’s technology into the core of his new venture.
Whether Uber’s board ultimately deploys Atoms’ robotaxi technology at scale, or treats the $100 million as an option on a relationship, may define how quickly the Atoms Transport division moves from concept to commercial fleet.
