Atoms, formerly known as City Storage Systems, was founded in 2017 by Travis Kalanick after his departure from Uber. The company builds physical automation - robotics, software, and infrastructure - intended to automate the systems that mine, grow, manufacture and move resources. It operates across three verticals: food, mining and transport, and describes its work as developing a new class of computation for the real world, involving machines that sense, predict and act in physical environments. It operated in stealth for eight years before rebranding in March 2026.
Engineering work spans robotics, physical automation, industrial software and infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, kitchen and food automation infrastructure, mining automation, and sensing and prediction systems. The product line includes Atoms Food, Atoms Mining and Atoms Transport - the last described as a "wheelbase for robots" - alongside a category the company calls "gainfully employed robots", specialised machines designed for productive work in physical environments.
Six named subsidiaries sit within the group: CloudKitchens, which provides delivery-first kitchen infrastructure for restaurants; Pronto AI, focused on autonomous driving and haulage automation; Lab37, developing physical automation and robotics; Otter, Picnic and ProFood, which operate in the food technology and food industry ecosystems.
The stated philosophy centres on making industry more productive, reliable and scalable, with robots performing jobs intended to bring abundance to owners and society. The company's framing of its mission is to build physical automation to transform industry and move the world.
