By Hamza Faisal
Atoms, the robotics and industrial automation group founded by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, has raised $1.7 billion in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), closing one of the largest technology financings of 2026. The company announced the round from Paris on October 12.
The round drew participation from Uber, Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and other institutional investors. As part of the financing, a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz is joining the Atoms board, deepening the venture firm's ties to Kalanick's post-Uber empire.

A $1.7 billion bet on robot-run kitchens

The capital will accelerate Atoms' push across three industries — food, mining, and transport — with its ProKitchens business taking center stage.
ProKitchens operates a network of certified commercial kitchens in Marseille, Lille, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Lisbon, Warsaw, and Amsterdam, spanning France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and the Netherlands.
The model gives food entrepreneurs ready-to-fit kitchen spaces on flexible contracts, removing much of the capital burden of opening new locations. Atoms says the new funding will channel investment into hardware automation and physical workflow management, helping operators improve efficiency, reliability, and the pace at which they can scale.

From CloudKitchens to heavy industry

Atoms sits at the center of Kalanick's portfolio as the industrial-automation arm of his food-technology ambitions. It forms the Atoms Food pillar alongside CloudKitchens — his network of delivery-only ghost kitchens — and a growing set of hardware projects.
The company's stated goal is to reduce kitchen labor friction and improve operational efficiency for operators of every size.
The group says it is applying the same automation playbook beyond food. Mining and transport are named as the next frontiers, positioning Atoms as a broad industrial robotics company rather than a food-tech one-trick pony.
For Kalanick, who has kept a low profile since leaving Uber in 2019, the round marks his biggest public fundraising moment yet.

One of 2026's biggest raises

At $1.7 billion, the Atoms financing ranks among the largest funding rounds of the year, landing in a market where mega-rounds have become increasingly rare.
The participation of Uber itself is notable — the ride-hail giant taking a stake in its founder's new venture ties the two companies together nearly a decade after Kalanick's departure.
Whether robot-run kitchens can scale profitably across Europe remains the open question. But with $1.7 billion in fresh capital and one of Silicon Valley's most storied firms leading the round, Kalanick's bet on automation is now one of the best-funded experiments in the industry.
By Hamza Faisal