“Mining, construction, heavy transport, food production are just a few examples of atoms-heavy industries awaiting massive digital transformation,” Kalanick said in an announcement on the company’s website. “Multiple trillion-dollar industries rapidly transforming over the next decade powering an engine of prosperity unparalleled in human history.”
Industrial AI, which encompasses software, sensors, robotics and AI used to automate operations, is set to power the next Industrial Revolution, Kalanick wrote.
The equity investment was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and that company’s co-founder and general partner, Ben Horowitz, will join Atom’ board, according to the announcement.
Horowitz wrote in a Wednesday blog post that just as computers transformed information, robots are set to do most of the menial work in the physical world.
“I think the most valuable thing someone could do with AI and robotics is to repeat the same thing Uber did for transportation, or that computers did for the digital world: to make everything and everyone more productive,” Horowitz said. “There are so many companies out there (and we’ve backed many of them!) working on various digital forms of this. But most of the jobs we do are still in the physical world, whereas the frontier of productivity means physical productivity: making things, moving things, storing things.”
Atoms continues Kalanick’s journey to “digitize the physical world” that began with Uber, continued with CloudKitchens and now includes Atoms, Kalanick said in the announcement.
Kalanick announced in an April post on LinkedIn that City Storage Systems, the company behind CloudKitchens, Otter, Lab37, Picnic and ProFood Properties, was transformed into Atoms.
He said that the companies created under City Storage Systems would become the foundation of Atoms Food, and that from there, Atoms will expand into robotics, autonomous logistics, mining and transport infrastructure.
“Food was just the beginning,” Kalanick said in the post. “The deeper opportunity is building systems that digitize the physical world. A future where software, robotics and infrastructure work together to help mine the minerals, manufacture the goods, move them across cities, and deliver them to people everywhere.”
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