Travis Kalanick unveiled Atoms, a robotics venture focused on building specialized robots for food, mining, and transportation sectors. The company represents an expanded rebrand of City Storage Systems, which operates ghost-kitchen platform CloudKitchens.
Atoms is organized into three divisions: Atoms Food provides infrastructure for the food industry; Atoms Mining focuses on enhancing mine productivity; and Atoms Transport, described as a wheelbase for robots—a foundational mobility platform other robotic systems can build upon.
Kalanick emphasized that Atoms will develop specialized robots designed for specific industrial tasks rather than general-purpose humanoids. The company has absorbed several City Storage Business units, including Otter and Lab37. Lab37 is developing a 19-foot-long kitchen robot called the Bowl Builder, which can automate up to 40% of manual work involved in preparing orders.
For mining and transportation, Atoms plans center on Pronto, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites. Kalanick is Pronto’s biggest investor and indicated he’s close to acquiring its remaining shares. Pronto’s flagship product is an autonomous driving system built for haul trucks—large vehicles used for material transport in mining operations and construction projects.
Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO in 2017 following investor pressure during a period marked by workplace culture issues and regulatory clashes. He subsequently founded City Storage Systems in 2018, which grew CloudKitchens to a reported $15 billion valuation by 2022.
The announcement comes as interest grows in specialized industrial robotics, which offer clearer paths to profitability compared to general-purpose humanoid robots facing challenges in navigation and reasoning.
