Travis Kalanick, the Uber co-founder pushed out as CEO in 2017, is building robotaxi technology through his company Atoms — and he’s brought back the engineer whose actions once helped end his time at Uber. According to Financial Times reporting cited by SiliconANGLE, Atoms recently acquired Pronto, an autonomous-mining startup led by Anthony Levandowski, bringing Levandowski back into Kalanick’s orbit to lead the robotaxi effort.
Uber, meanwhile, has confirmed putting $100 million into Atoms as part of the company’s earlier $1.7 billion funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to reporting from PYMNTS and multiple outlets that have since verified the figure independently.
The Levandowski Connection, Explained
For anyone who wasn’t following Uber’s self-driving saga closely, the Levandowski hire is the part that raises eyebrows. He co-founded Waymo, later ran Uber’s self-driving program, and was convicted of stealing trade secrets from Google’s self-driving unit and passing them to Uber — a case The Next Web reports cost Uber close to $350 million and contributed directly to Kalanick’s removal as CEO. He served time before receiving a pardon from President Trump in 2021.
Atoms’ acquisition of Pronto puts Levandowski back inside Kalanick’s company, this time reportedly overseeing Atoms’ autonomous vehicle work, according to PYMNTS’ sourcing. It’s a pairing few would have predicted a decade ago, and one that The Next Web’s reporting frames bluntly: an engineer whose actions helped end Kalanick’s Uber tenure is now working directly for him again.
Where Uber’s $100 Million Actually Fits
Uber’s investment isn’t a fresh, standalone check — it’s part of the $1.7 billion round Atoms closed earlier this year, according to reporting confirmed by both AI Weekly and Progressive Robot, which traces the figure back to The Information’s original report and TechCrunch’s independent confirmation. Progressive Robot’s timeline places the round’s announcement on July 22, 2026, with the Financial Times’ fuller reporting on the robotaxi angle landing September 6.
Beyond the money, Atoms has reportedly held preliminary talks with Uber about using its technology for robotaxi service on Uber’s own ride-hailing platform, according to PYMNTS. That would mark Kalanick’s first real involvement with Uber’s ride-hailing side since he left the company’s board in 2019.
Atoms Says This Isn’t What It Looks Like
Here’s where the story gets tangled. Atoms gave the Financial Times a direct denial, describing itself as “an industrial software company” with “no plans to enter the saturated robotaxi market,” according to The Next Web’s reporting. In the same breath, the company acknowledged that Uber is a partner and “can use our technology for its ridesharing business if it is helpful” — a much narrower and more specific statement than the flat denial preceding it.
The Next Web’s coverage doesn’t try to paper over that contradiction, noting plainly that the sourced reporting says one thing while the company says another, and that nothing published so far settles which version holds up. Datastudios.org’s analysis takes a similarly cautious line, arguing Atoms should currently be treated as developing robotaxi technology rather than as a company that has launched, or committed to launching, a robotaxi service.
The Bigger Team Kalanick Is Assembling
Levandowski isn’t the only familiar name joining Atoms. Reporting from Ascendants.in notes that former Uber CFO Gautam Gupta has come on as Atoms’ chief financial officer, and Eric Meyhofer — who took over Uber’s robotaxi program after Levandowski departed — now runs Lab37, a separate Kalanick venture focused on commercial kitchen automation. Several dozen former Uber employees have reportedly joined Atoms, alongside new hires pulled from Zoox, Tesla, and Waymo.
Atoms itself isn’t a brand-new venture, either. Progressive Robot’s reporting traces it back to City Storage Systems, the holding company Kalanick founded after leaving Uber in 2017, which quietly absorbed his CloudKitchens ghost-kitchen business before relaunching under the Atoms name in March 2026.
Why This Matters Beyond One Company’s Org Chart
Autonomous vehicle development isn’t purely a capital problem — it’s a talent and experience problem, and Datastudios.org’s analysis makes the case that Levandowski’s real value to Atoms isn’t symbolic. It’s the accumulated systems experience from Google, Uber, and Pronto now sitting inside one team, backed by one of the largest funding rounds in recent memory.
If Atoms does move seriously into road autonomy, the harder work won’t be the announcement — it’ll be the unglamorous validation work: proving perception systems hold up under rare conditions, managing edge cases, and demonstrating that new software doesn’t introduce regressions across huge amounts of driving data. None of that shows up in a funding headline.
Datastudios.org lays out a useful checklist for judging whether this becomes real: named vehicle platforms, specific testing locations, permits, safety-driver or fully driverless operations, measurable autonomous miles, defined fleet partners, and a concrete commercial arrangement with Uber or another network. Until those specifics appear, the honest read is that Atoms is developing robotaxi-adjacent technology — not that a Kalanick-branded robotaxi is imminent.