Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick launches robotics venture Atoms

Travis Kalanick, the billionaire co-founder of Uber Technologies Inc., today announced the launch of a new robotics startup.

Atoms Inc. is built on the assets of a company called City Storage Systems Inc. that Kalanick founded in 2016. It will reportedly also absorb Pronto AI Inc., a venture-backed autonomous driving startup. The Information reported that Atoms is set to receive “major backing” from Uber.

City Storage Systems has raised more than $1 billion in equity and debt financing. Its flagship asset is a company called CloudKitchens that operates dozens of ghost kitchens in the U.S. It leases those kitchens to restaurant operators, which use them to prepare takeout orders for customers.

City Storage Systems also competes in the software market. It provides a suite of applications called Otter that restaurant operators can use to process online orders, run ads across delivery apps and perform various other tasks. The company offers the software alongside restaurant systems such as point-of-sale devices.

Otter has been absorbed into Atoms alongside another City Storage Business unit called Lab37. The latter group is developing a 19-foot-long kitchen robot called the Bowl Builder. According to the company, it can automate up to 40% of the manual work involved in preparing orders.

Atoms intends to develop technology for not only restaurants but also enterprises in the logistics and mining sectors. The company’s plans in the latter two markets center on a startup called Pronto in which Kalanick is the biggest investor. The executive said today that he’s close to acquiring its remaining shares.

Pronto’s flagship product is an autonomous driving system built for haul trucks. Those are large, multimillion-dollar vehicles that mine operators use for material transport tasks. Haul trucks are sometimes also used in construction projects.

Pronto’s system provides so-called Level 4 autonomy, which means that it enables vehicles to operate without human guidance in a limited area. The device relies on a GPS module, cameras and radar sensors to navigate its environment. Its components are housed in a ruggedized case designed to withstand harsh conditions such as snow and wind.

Workers can control trucks equipped with Pronto’s system using a mobile app. In addition to setting a vehicle’s travel designation, the app makes it possible to track operating metrics such as fuel use and payload weight.

Kalanick wrote in a blog post on Atoms’ website that it will “make gainfully employed robots – specialized robots with productive jobs that bring abundance to their owners and society at large.” He went on to write that developing humanoid robotics won’t be a focus for the company. The blog post hints that Atoms hopes to automate tasks such as transporting raw materials to factories and delivering finished products to customers.

Photo: Pronto