Travis Kalanick is relaunching his post-Uber vehicle, formerly known as City Storage Systems, under the name Atoms, with a strategic focus on specialized robotics for mining and transportation sectors.
The rebrand signals a departure from City Storage Systems' earlier identity, which had been associated with repurposing distressed real estate for food and retail concepts. The new direction targets industrial applications where autonomous and robotic systems are increasingly competing with traditional labour and equipment.
Reports indicate that Kalanick is working with Anthony Levandowski, the self-driving engineer and former Google and Uber executive, on the venture. Levandowski's involvement adds technical credibility in autonomous systems but also carries reputational baggage from his trade-secrets conviction, for which he received a presidential pardon in 2021.
Details on financing, headcount, and the operational status of any deployed robotics systems were not disclosed across the reports available at publication.
