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Travis Kalanick’s robotics startup Atoms taps former Uber finance chief as CFO
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Travis Kalanick’s robotics startup Atoms has hired former Uber finance chief Gautam Gupta as its new chief financial officer, marking the latest reunion of the embattled founder’s inner circle. Gupta announced the move in social media posts on Wednesday, just weeks after Atoms raised a massive $1.7 billion funding round. He spent more than four years at Uber, leaving in July 2017 shortly after Kalanick resigned as CEO under pressure from scandals. Gupta had first invested in Uber in 2012 while at Goldman Sachs and joined the company a year later, becoming one of Kalanick’s most trusted deputies.
Atoms, previously known as CloudKitchens, focuses on robotics and industrial AI for mining, food, and transportation. The company’s latest round drew an unexpected participant: Uber itself, which reportedly contributed $100 million, according to The Information and confirmed by TechCrunch. Uber’s investment reunites the ride-hailing giant with the founder it ousted in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. Kalanick framed the round as “unfinished business” in a blog post, saying he wanted to complete the “bits-to-atoms story arc” started at Uber and continued at CloudKitchens.
Gupta will step down from A*, the venture firm he co-founded in 2020, to take the CFO role. He wrote that A* made its “largest investment in the history of our fund” in Atoms, and that he joined because he believed in Kalanick’s “magical mix of genius and intensity.” The hiring continues a pattern of Kalanick rehiring former Uber executives, including Anthony Levandowski, whose mining autonomy startup Pronto was acquired by Atoms earlier this year.
Kalanick has been characteristically vague about Atoms’ specific products, saying only that he wants to “go up against the final boss, Nature and its fierce resistance to change.” With a $1.7 billion war chest and a growing team of familiar faces, Atoms is positioning itself as a major player in industrial automation. The company’s ability to attract both talent and capital suggests investors remain confident in Kalanick’s vision, despite his controversial past. Whether Atoms can deliver on its ambitious goals will be tested in the coming years as it expands beyond food delivery into heavy industry.
