Uber Puts $100 Million Into Kalanick's Atoms as Robotaxi Questions Swirl

Uber has put $100 million into the company that employs Anthony Levandowski — and, according to a Financial Times investigation published Sunday, September 6, that company is quietly building robotaxi technology.

The company is Atoms, the industrial automation venture founded in March by Travis Kalanick, the man Uber’s board forced out as chief executive in 2017. The FT, citing people familiar with the plans plus interviews with current and former Atoms and Uber employees, reported that Atoms is preparing a hiring spree and a series of acquisitions aimed at making it a serious player in autonomous driving, and that it has already held preliminary talks with Uber about running its software on Uber’s ride-hailing network. Levandowski, the FT said, is leading the work.

Atoms issued a flat denial. The company told the FT it is “an industrial software company focused [on] industrial applications,” adding: “We have no plans to enter the saturated robotaxi market. Uber is a partner of Atoms and can use our technology for its ridesharing business if it is helpful.” Uber declined to comment.

Those two sentences do not sit comfortably together, and neither side has published anything that settles the question.

The money, and the men

The $100 million is Uber’s slice of the $1.7 billion round Atoms closed in June, led by Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch confirmed the figure in August; the FT’s contribution was to attach a number to a stake Atoms had already disclosed. Uber appears on the company’s own investor page alongside a16z, Bain Capital Ventures, Fifth Wall and SV Angel, with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs among five debt partners. Ben Horowitz, who took a board seat, called it “certainly the biggest cheque I’ve ever written.” Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is also among the backers, according to people familiar with the round.

What makes the arrangement remarkable is who it puts back on Uber’s cap table by proxy. Levandowski co-founded Waymo, then ran Uber’s self-driving programme. Google sued over trade secrets he carried out of its autonomous vehicle unit; the FT puts Uber’s cost of that litigation at close to $350 million, and the affair contributed directly to Kalanick’s removal. Levandowski was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison, then pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2021. He arrived at Atoms in March when the company acquired Pronto, his autonomous mining startup — which is, conveniently, the tidiest possible illustration of the industrial story Atoms tells about itself.

The rest of the roster is familiar too. Gautam Gupta, Uber’s former finance chief, is Atoms’ CFO. Eric Meyhofer, who took over Uber’s robotaxi program after Levandowski left, now runs Lab37, the arm automating commercial kitchens; the FT reports he has hired several dozen former Uber staff and recruited from Zoox, Tesla and Waymo. Atoms, formerly known as City Storage Systems, now spans more than 2,000 employees across CloudKitchens, Lab37 and its automation businesses. Most sit in the food division. A growing number do not.

Kalanick himself has been less guarded than his company. “A lot of the things that would have happened with Uber over time are things we’re doing now,” he told an audience at an a16z event in San Francisco this month. He described the funding round as “unfinished business” — and titled the essay announcing it exactly that. The essay runs through mining, construction and heavy transport. It does not mention robotaxis once.

Why It Matters

Uber’s strategy has been to be the demand layer and let everyone else burn capital on the hard part. It has stitched together partnerships with a long list of AV developers: it launched London’s first robotaxi service with Wayve last week and agreed in August to put more than 2,000 Pony.ai vehicles on European streets. A $100 million position in a company that may or may not be building a competing stack fits that portfolio logic — cheap optionality on a technology Uber cannot afford to be locked out of.

But the timing is awkward. Uber cut roughly 3,300 jobs on September 2, about a tenth of its workforce, and exited Nigeria and Uganda. Explaining a nine-figure venture cheque to a founder the board removed for cause, in the same fortnight, is not a comfortable conversation with employees or investors.

There is a deeper signal here about how the AV market is consolidating. The model the FT describes — build the driving software, let somebody else build the vehicle — is the Wayve and Nuro playbook, and it is now the default for well-capitalized entrants. Atoms would arrive with $1.7 billion, an experienced bench poached from Uber, Waymo, Zoox and Tesla, and a founder with an unusual tolerance for regulatory friction. That combination has not been on the board since Kalanick left.

It also says something about Silicon Valley’s memory. Kalanick left in 2017 amid allegations of managerial dysfunction, mishandled harassment complaints and multiple regulatory probes. Nine years later he headlines a16z events, and one investor told the FT only that they were aware of his background and that views differ on whether he should have gone.

What to watch

Three things will resolve the ambiguity faster than any statement. First, hiring: if Atoms starts posting perception, planning and vehicle-integration roles at volume, the industrial framing collapses. Second, acquisitions — the FT says several are planned, and the targets will reveal the intent. Third, whether Uber ever explains what its $100 million bought. Dara Khosrowshahi and Kalanick remain in regular contact, per the FT; the two appeared together at a US-Saudi summit in Riyadh in May 2025 while discussing a deal involving Pony.ai’s American arm, talks that fizzled. A formal Uber-Atoms network agreement would be Kalanick’s first involvement in ride-hailing since he left the board in 2019 — and the clearest sign yet that “unfinished business” meant precisely what it sounded like.