Travis Kalanick’s industrial AI company Atoms raised $1.7 billion in an Andreessen Horowitz-led round announced July 22, with Uber joining as an investor and Ben Horowitz taking a board seat. The deal merges Kalanick’s CloudKitchens, Pronto mining automation, and transport businesses into a single equity structure, built around a thesis that specialized robots beat humanoids. Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, A*, K5 Global, Abstract, SV Angel and Alpha Square Group also participated, while Investing.com reported Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Barclays as listed debt partners, with the size of any debt facility undisclosed. TechCrunch reported the raise last week, making Atoms one of the year’s biggest robotics financing events. According to Dealroom data cited by Tech Times in June, physical AI and robotics startups had raised $55.8 billion in 2026 by that point, nearly double the prior full-year record. Atoms is the rebranded umbrella over City Storage Systems, known for CloudKitchens. In March, Kalanick publicly introduced Atoms as a robotics company focused on food, mining and transportation, and TechCrunch reported he was close to acquiring Pronto, the autonomous haulage company co-founded by Anthony Levandowski and Ognen Stojanovski. Pronto later said Atoms completed the acquisition, making Pronto the core technology engine of Atoms Mining. The company