Travis Kalanick’s Atoms raises $1.7 billion for industrial AI

Atoms, the company led by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, has raised $1.7 billion in equity funding to build what it calls physical artificial intelligence for major industrial sectors. The financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, and the venture firm’s co-founder and general partner Ben Horowitz will join Atoms’ board, according to an announcement from Atoms.

The company is positioning itself around industrial AI, a category that combines software, sensors, robotics and artificial intelligence to automate work in asset-heavy industries. Kalanick said in the company announcement that mining, construction, heavy transport and food production are among the sectors awaiting broad digital transformation.

Atoms describes the opportunity as extending software-led automation beyond screens and data systems into operations that involve equipment, infrastructure, logistics and labor in the physical economy. In that model, AI systems do not only analyze information. They can be linked to machines, sensors and robotics that carry out tasks, coordinate workflows and improve productivity in industrial settings.

Kalanick said industrial AI is set to power the next Industrial Revolution, according to the announcement. He described “multiple trillion-dollar industries” as entering a period of rapid transformation over the next decade.

Andreessen Horowitz backs physical AI push

Horowitz wrote in a Wednesday blog post that robots could take on much of the routine work performed in the physical world, drawing a comparison with the way computers changed information-based work.

“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. He added that many jobs still take place in the physical world, including making, moving and storing goods.

The investment marks a high-profile bet by Andreessen Horowitz on the application of AI and robotics to industries where digitization has often moved more slowly than in consumer internet, software and financial technology. Atoms’ stated focus spans sectors with complex operations and large capital requirements, where automation depends on integrating hardware, software and physical infrastructure.

From City Storage Systems to Atoms

Kalanick has framed Atoms as a continuation of his work to digitize parts of the physical economy, beginning with Uber and later CloudKitchens. In an April LinkedIn post, he said City Storage Systems, the company behind CloudKitchens, Otter, Lab37, Picnic and ProFood Properties, had been transformed into Atoms.

He said at the time that the businesses created under City Storage Systems would form the basis of Atoms Food. From that foundation, he said Atoms would expand into robotics, autonomous logistics, mining and transport infrastructure.

“Food was just the beginning,” Kalanick wrote in the LinkedIn post. He said the broader opportunity was to build systems in which software, robotics and infrastructure work together to mine minerals, manufacture goods, move them through cities and deliver them to people.

Atoms’ funding gives the company substantial capital to pursue that strategy across sectors where automation requires more than software deployment. The company has not detailed specific product timelines, customer names or deployment targets in the announcement.

This story draws on original reporting from PYMNTS.