Travis Kalanick Partners with Anthony Levandowski for Autonomous Vehicle Push at Atoms
Uber founder Travis Kalanick is launching an autonomous vehicle initiative at his physical AI startup Atoms. He has reunited with Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of the Google trade secrets lawsuit.
Uber founder Travis Kalanick is returning to the autonomous vehicle sector through his physical artificial intelligence startup, Atoms, with plans to potentially partner with the ride-hailing giant he was ousted from in 2017, according to a report by the Financial Times.
A Controversial Reunion
Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO in 2017 following a series of corporate scandals. The most prominent involved Uber's self-driving division, which faced allegations of stealing trade secrets from Google. That dispute ended with Uber paying Google $245 million in stock. Uber eventually shut down its autonomous vehicle operations in 2020.
To lead the new autonomous vehicle push at Atoms, Kalanick has recruited Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the heart of the Google lawsuit. In 2016, Uber acquired Otto, a self-driving truck startup co-founded by Levandowski, a former co-founder of Google's Waymo. Google sued, claiming Levandowski downloaded 14,000 confidential files before leaving.
While Uber settled its case, Levandowski was ordered to pay Google $179 million, declared bankruptcy, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He avoided serving time after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in the final hours of his first term.
Funding and Operations
Kalanick initially invested $150 million in a real estate venture that operated ghost kitchens under CloudKitchens. In March, he merged those operations into Atoms, rebranding it as a robotics and physical AI company. In July, Atoms secured $1.7 billion in debt and equity funding. The equity round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Bain Capital Ventures, and Fifth Wall. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs led the debt financing.
Atoms has now acquired Levandowski’s automation startup, Pronto, bringing the two figures back together. Kalanick has also hired dozens of engineers from Uber, Amazon's Zoox, Google's Waymo, and Tesla. Atoms currently employs over 2,000 people.
Sources state that Uber has invested $100 million in Atoms and has held preliminary talks to integrate its technology into the Uber ride-hailing network.
Atoms provided a statement to the Financial Times regarding its strategy:
"We are an industrial software company focused on industrial applications. We have no plans to enter the crowded robotaxi market. Uber is a partner of Atoms and can use our technology for its ride-hailing business if it is useful."
