Uber's Ex-CEO Kalanick Raises $1.7 Billion, With Uber Participating

Travis Kalanick, the founder ousted from Uber's helm in 2017, just raised $1.7 billion for his new venture. The round, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), includes an unexpected participant: Uber itself, the company he created and was removed from as CEO. The money goes to Atoms, the holding company housing his robotics and automation businesses, in a move that reinforces Kalanick's reconstruction in the tech universe.

The billion-dollar raise was confirmed by TechCrunch on July 22, 2026. Besides a16z—whose partner Ben Horowitz joins the Atoms board—Bain Capital and Fifth Wall also participated. Uber's presence, however, is the detail that makes the deal symbolic. After a turbulent exit nearly a decade ago, Kalanick now receives an investment from the very company he helped build and that became a global mobility giant.

The irony of an unlikely investor

The relationship between Kalanick and Uber was never conventional. In 2017, after a series of image crises and investor pressure, he left the CEO role. Since then, the engineer and entrepreneur has avoided the spotlight but not his appetite for new businesses. Uber's entry into the Atoms round signals that in the tech ecosystem, old ties can reconfigure when strategic interests are at stake.

For Uber, the investment could be a gateway into applied robotics for logistics and kitchen automation—areas Kalanick has been exploring. For the ex-CEO, having his former employer as an investor shows that his new company has already achieved market relevance.

Kalanick's rebuild: from CloudKitchens to Atoms

After leaving Uber, Kalanick dove into the dark kitchen market—industrial kitchens designed exclusively for delivery. CloudKitchens, the startup he founded for this purpose, buys and retrofits warehouses in urban centers to rent them to restaurants that operate only online. The business grew rapidly in the U.S. and other countries, riding the pandemic-driven food delivery wave.

Over time, the scope expanded. In March 2026, Kalanick announced the acquisition of Pronto, an industrial automation company founded by Anthony Levandowski—another controversial figure in the sector, known for his time at Google's self-driving car program and a legal dispute with Uber. The deal united two former corporate adversaries around a common goal: bringing robotics into kitchens and distribution centers.

CloudKitchens was then rebranded as Atoms, a holding company that now houses both the dark kitchen business and Pronto. The name change reflects Kalanick's ambition to go beyond delivery: Atoms now positions itself as a robotics and automation company, targeting the transformation of industrial processes.

Robotics as a central bet

Pronto's inclusion under the Atoms umbrella brought expertise in autonomous vehicles and automation systems for controlled environments—exactly the kind of technology that can make dark kitchens more efficient. Although the company does not detail its plans, the integration suggests Kalanick's vision is to create spaces where robots prepare, package, and dispatch orders with minimal human intervention.

The $1.7 billion round provides fuel to accelerate this project. According to TechCrunch, most of the funds appear destined for hiring. This indicates Atoms is in an expansion phase, likely to beef up its engineering and robotics research teams. No details on the holding's valuation were disclosed—the figure remains confidential.

With Ben Horowitz on the board, the company gains a heavyweight advisor in Silicon Valley. a16z has a track record of ambitious bets on cutting-edge technology, and the investor's presence signals that Wall Street sees potential in Kalanick's thesis.

What to expect

Kalanick's trajectory in recent years shows an entrepreneur who, far from the Uber-era scandals, rebuilt his reputation by betting on technology infrastructure businesses. Atoms, now well-capitalized, has the means to accelerate the integration of software, hardware, and logistics—a territory where few startups can compete with the scale of big tech.

It is still early to measure the holding's market impact. But the fact that Uber entered the round—and that Kalanick attracted investors of the caliber of a16z and Bain Capital—shows the founder is back in the game. And this time, not as a controversial disruptor, but as a builder of infrastructure for the next generation of automation.