Andreessen Horowitz is making a major bet on the future of AI-powered robotics, backing former Uber (NYSE:UBER) co-founder Travis Kalanick’s next venture with a $1.7 billion funding round for Atoms.
The investment, which also included Uber, Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and other backers, gives a16z a deeper connection to Kalanick’s latest effort to automate the physical world. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz is joining Atoms’ board, with the investor signaling its enthusiasm for the project by posting on X: "Travis Is Back," TechCrunch reported.
Atoms is the rebranded umbrella company built around Kalanick’s post-Uber venture CloudKitchens. The company has increasingly shifted its focus toward industrial automation and robotics, including its acquisition of mining automation company Pronto in March.
Pronto is led by Anthony Levandowski, a former Uber colleague of Kalanick’s who previously worked on autonomous vehicle technology.
Kalanick has described Atoms as an effort to build the infrastructure for a new generation of robots, extending beyond Pronto’s existing work with autonomous mining vehicles. The entrepreneur has said the company’s goal is to create a "wheelbase" for robots — a platform that can help automate parts of the physical economy.
‘Bits-To-Atoms’
The raise also marks a continuation of Kalanick’s long-running ambition to connect software with the physical world. In a post on X, he described the funding as "unfinished business," saying the company aims to complete the "bits-to-atoms story arc" that began at Uber, continued through CloudKitchens and now moves forward with Atoms.
"16 years ago, I started a journey to digitize the physical world," Kalanick wrote. "Understand, predict and control the physical world with software."
He described Atoms’ vision as creating "atoms-based computers," where manufacturing serves as the CPU, real estate functions as storage and transportation becomes the network layer.
Horowitz framed the investment as a bet that AI and robotics could have a similar productivity impact on the physical economy that Uber had on transportation and computers had on digital industries.
"I think the most valuable thing someone could do with AI and robotics is to repeat the same thing Uber did for transportation, or that computers did for the digital world: to make everything and everyone more productive," Horowitz wrote.
Kalanick has not disclosed specific products Atoms plans to develop, but said the new capital could help expand hiring as the company builds toward its broader robotics ambitions.
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