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

Travis Kalanick's robotics company Atoms has raised $1.7 billion in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from investors including Uber, the company Kalanick founded and left as CEO in 2017. Atoms is a rebranded holding company built on Cloud Kitchens, Kalanick's ghost kitchen project, and includes Pronto, a heavy industry automation company he acquired. Kalanick has described Atoms as continuing work he started at Uber to digitize and control the physical world through software, with plans to build a "wheelbase for robots" and expand into mining and other industries. The funding matters because it represents major investor confidence in applying AI and robotics to reshape traditional heavy industries, with Ben Horowitz stating the goal is making people more productive in the physical world, similar to how Uber changed transportation.