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Robotics firm Atoms has secured a USD 1.7 billion equity investment led by a16z, with co-founder Ben Horowitz joining its board, as the company consolidates multiple businesses under a unified Atoms equity structure, Travis Kalanick said.
Kalanick shared the development via his official X account, stating Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are among the banks lending to the start-up as part of the deal. "ATOMS is announcing a $1.7B equity investment with lead investor a16z and Ben Horowitz joining the board. As part of this investment we have merged our various businesses into one Atoms equity structure," he said. He further stated, the launch of ATOMS, following years of stealth development, generated significant interest. While his vision letter had outlined the broader concept of Physical AI in industry, he wanted to use the moment to explain how that vision connects to the actual business ATOMS is building and the opportunity seen by a16z and other investors, he noted in the post. He noted, 16 years ago, he began a journey to digitise the physical world by using software to understand, predict and control it. "Understand, predict and control the physical world with software. Building "atoms-based" computers where CPU is manufacturing, storage is real estate, and network is transportation," he said. Kalanick's first venture, Uber, focused on building a network for the physical world while CloudKitchens followed with a "food computer" centred on manufacturing and real estate. Now, Atoms is the next step. "We just launched that company - ATOMS. The vision is about the coming industrial revolution where large industrial economic sectors get completely digitized," he noted. He further stated, industrial AI is getting ready to power the next industrial revolution adding "Tesla calls it Amazing Abundance. We call it the Age of Atoms." "I want to thank a16z, and our many other capital partners for believing in us and making the bet on the progress machines we build to power this next industrial revolution. It's time to close the loop on some unfinished business," he said. A16z, Bain Capital, Uber, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, Alpha Square Group were among the equity partners while Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Barclays had been the debt partners in this investment round, he noted. (ANI)
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