‘Unfinished business’: Travis Kalanick revisits robotaxis with new start-up
Atoms gears up for hiring spree and could link with Uber, the company he was ousted from almost a decade ago
Travis Kalanick is eyeing a return to the ride-hailing market by developing robotaxi technology at his new venture Atoms, reuniting with former members of Uber’s autonomous vehicles team to realise a decade-long ambition.
Armed with Atoms’ recent $1.7bn fundraise, the Uber co-founder is gearing up for a hiring spree, including potential acquisitions, to bring in autonomous engineering talent, according to people familiar with his plans.
Atoms, which Kalanick has billed as a ‘physical AI’ company, has also held preliminary talks with Uber about using its technology for robotaxis on its ride-hailing network, these people said. Uber has invested $100mn in Atoms, they added.
A tie-up would mark Kalanick’s first involvement in ride-hailing at Uber since he left its board in 2019. He was forced out as chief executive following scandals nine years ago.
“A lot of the things that would have happened with Uber over time are things we’re doing now,” Kalanick said this month at an event held by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in San Francisco.
The FT interviewed multiple current and former Atoms and Uber employees about Kalanick’s return to the fray after nearly a decade on the sidelines. Uber declined to comment.
Atoms said it is “an industrial software company focused [on] industrial applications”. “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,” it said.
To accelerate his new project, Kalanick has brought on Waymo co-founder and former Uber self-driving chief Anthony Levandowski to lead Atoms’ autonomous vehicle work, including robotaxi development, the people said.
Levandowski’s theft of trade secrets from Google’s self-driving car unit contributed to Kalanick’s ousting from Uber and cost the company nearly $350mn in legal settlements.
In 2021, Levandowski was spared an 18-month prison sentence when he was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Atoms acquired Levandowski’s start-up Pronto, an automation company focused on heavy industry and mining, in March.
Kalanick launched Atoms in the same month, rebadging his real estate group, City Storage Systems, which acts as a holding company for various business interests including dark kitchen operation CloudKitchens. Atoms announced a $1.7bn fundraising led by Andreessen Horowitz in July.
The Uber co-founder’s empire spans a food delivery service, a point-of-sale business and Lab37, an operation to automate commercial kitchens.
Atoms has more than 2,000 employees across the span of its various arms, according to public profiles on LinkedIn. The bulk work across the company’s food division but a growing number of employees are focused on autonomous vehicles, people familiar with the matter told the FT.
Kalanick has turned to several former colleagues at Uber, including former finance chief Gautam Gupta, who joined as Atoms’ CFO. Eric Meyhofer, who succeeded Levandowski as Uber’s robotaxi development chief, helms Lab37.
He has hired several dozen former Uber employees and recruited from Amazon’s Zoox, Tesla and Alphabet’s Waymo.
The company is taking a similar approach to AV companies such as Wayve and Nuro, which want to build the technology for robotaxis but not the vehicles themselves, said people familiar with the matter.
Kalanick is returning to the limelight having departed Uber in ignominy back in 2017 following allegations of managerial dysfunction. Female workers claimed the company turned a blind eye to sexual harassment and discrimination. Regulatory probes in several markets and Google’s lawsuit over trade secrets theft further damaged his standing and a boardroom clash ensued.
However, Silicon Valley’s culture has shifted in the Trump era, and its veneration of hard-charging founders has grown.
At the Andreessen event, a video of which was later posted online, Kalanick walked young tech entrepreneurs through slides labelled “big deck energy” and spoke about “retardmaxxing” — when founders stop overthinking and take immediate but imperfect actions.
One of Atoms’ largest backers, Andreessen Horowitz, has dismissed the furore surrounding his tenure at Uber.
“My very favourite thing [about Uber’s guiding principles] was meritocracy and toe-stepping,” said Ben Horowitz, the Silicon Valley firm’s co-founder, at the August event. “That was the part that got diluted when Travis went out.”
He added: “It’s certainly the biggest cheque I’ve ever written . . . I was at conviction very fast.”
Close friends maintain Kalanick was the victim of a “media pile-on” that left him incapable of managing Uber’s day-to-day operations.
“There are probably 10 people who have created as much private value in the markets and he is one of them,” said David Erickson, a professor at Columbia Business School. “Certain entrepreneurs are always going to be acceptable to investors.”
Kalanick counts Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund among investors in Atoms, having earlier backed CloudKitchens, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company has also received funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Fifth Wall and veteran tech investor Ron Conway’s SV Angel, while it raised debt from leading banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.
Investors told the FT that they had taken care when deciding to back Kalanick, including understanding his current managerial style.
“We’re aware of his background. It’s not a secret,” said one investor. “There’s a range of views about whether it was fair for him to leave the company.”
“There are credible people backing him,” the investor added.
One backer whom investors have turned to for assurance is Uber. Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi remains in regular contact with Kalanick, said people familiar with the matter. The two were spotted huddled together on the sidelines of the US-Saudi Arabian business summit held in Riyadh in May 2025.
Khosrowshahi and Kalanick were in talks at the time about a deal involving the US arm of Chinese self-driving car company Pony AI, the people added. Those talks have since fizzled.
Backers caution that Atoms is not exclusively tied to the development of robotaxis, with Kalanick adopting a grander vision for the venture. “He doesn’t want to be boxed in . . . It’s not just all about reclaiming some form of past glory as much as it is fulfilling a longstanding vision,” said one person close to the project.
In an essay unveiling his plans for Atoms, he wrote that the company would seek to leverage industrial AI, including software and robotics, in an attempt to unlock trillions of dollars in potential business by disrupting sectors including construction, mining, food and transportation.
Kalanick is determined to expand beyond the ride-hailing group he co-founded and made an effort to distance himself from the venture during his recent talk. “When you fall in love again, you don’t think about the ex very much,” he said.
However, his recent memorandum was entitled “Unfinished business”.