The move represents Kalanick's most ambitious post-Uber play yet. CloudKitchens, which operates shared commercial kitchen spaces for delivery-only restaurants, has been his primary business since being ousted from Uber in 2017. Rolling it into a robotics company suggests Kalanick sees automation as the natural evolution of the food preparation and delivery infrastructure he built.
Atoms' stated ambitions in mining and transport indicate Kalanick is looking well beyond kitchens. The robotics industry has seen enormous investment in recent months, with warehouse automation, autonomous vehicles, and industrial robotics attracting billions in venture capital.
The rebrand also comes at a time when CloudKitchens' ghost kitchen model has faced headwinds. The pandemic-era boom in delivery-only restaurants has cooled, and several competitors in the space have scaled back or shut down entirely.