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Gupta joins Atoms as CFO
Atoms, the industrial AI and robotics startup led by Travis Kalanick, appointed former Uber Head of Finance Gautam Gupta as its new chief financial officer after the company raised $1.7 billion.
“Atoms taps former Uber finance chief as CFO”
Gupta announced the move in social media posts on Wednesday, and TechCrunch reported he spent more than four years at Uber until he left in July 2017, just a few weeks after Kalanick resigned as CEO.
The hire follows Atoms’ acquisition of mining autonomy startup Pronto, run by former Uber (and former Google) self-driving engineer Anthony Levandowski, according to TechCrunch.
Kalanick framed the funding as “a bit of unfinished business” when he announced the $1.7 billion round last month, describing it as fuel to complete the “bits-to-atoms” story arc from Uber through CloudKitchens to Atoms.
Funding links to Uber
TechCrunch said Uber joined the $1.7 billion funding round as an investor, reuniting the company with the founder it pushed out in 2017 after a series of scandals and complaints of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.
The Information reported Uber contributed $100 million, and TechCrunch said it has also been able to confirm the figure.
Gupta wrote Wednesday that “[t]he single biggest reason I joined was — Travis,” adding that he believed Kalanick had “a magical mix of genius and intensity” that made him want to bet on the person rather than the market.
Gupta also said that A*, the VC firm he co-founded in 2020 after three years at Opendoor, invested in Atoms in what was the “largest investment in the history of our fund,” and he is stepping down from A* to take on the CFO role at Atoms, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Industrial AI push expands
Atoms is organized around three primary divisions—Atoms Food, Atoms Mining, and Atoms Transport—while the platform targets multi-trillion-dollar industrial sectors by building specialized autonomous machinery, according to Adgully.
“The platform operates across three primary divisions: Atoms Food, Atoms Mining and Atoms Transport.”
Adgully also said Gupta will transition to a Venture Partner position at A* as he steps into the CFO role full-time, and it described Atoms as evolving out of Kalanick’s City Storage Systems and absorbing CloudKitchens.
The company’s executive team includes autonomous driving pioneer Anthony Levandowski as Atoms focuses on purpose-built physical AI for heavy industry, Adgully reported.
In parallel, Kalanick said he wants Atoms to work on mining, food, and transportation, emphasizing going “up against the final boss, Nature and its fierce resistance to change,” as TechCrunch quoted from his posts.
