Travis Kalanick’s robotics startup Atoms taps former Uber finance chief as CFO
Gautam Gupta leaves VC firm A* to join Travis Kalanick's robotics startup as chief financial officer.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Gautam Gupta, former finance chief under Travis Kalanick at Uber, joins Atoms as CFO
- Gupta spent over four years at Uber before leaving in July 2017
- Gupta's VC firm A* made its largest investment ever into Atoms
The tech industry is once again watching Travis Kalanick assemble his inner circle, as Gautam Gupta announced via social media on Wednesday that he has joined the robotics startup Atoms as chief financial officer. Gupta spent more than four years at Uber until his departure in July 2017, which came just weeks after Kalanick stepped down as CEO following prior notice of his exit that May.
Hiring Gupta extends a clear pattern of Kalanick reuniting former Uber colleagues at Atoms, a company previously known as CloudKitchens. Earlier this year, Atoms acquired Pronto, an autonomous mining startup led by Anthony Levandowski, a former self-driving engineer who worked at both Uber and Google. LinkedIn records also show several other high-ranking former Uber employees working alongside Kalanick at the startup.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Last month, Kalanick announced a massive $1.7 billion funding round for Atoms, which notably welcomed Uber back as an investor. This reunion brings the company back together with the founder it pushed out in 2017 amid widespread scandals, sexual harassment complaints, and discrimination claims. While Uber has declined to publicly disclose its contribution amount, The Information reported the figure at $100 million, which TechCrunch independently confirmed.
"On many levels, this round is a bit of unfinished business. Fuel to complete the bits-to-atoms story arc we started at Uber, continued at CloudKitchens, and will now finish at Atoms"
Travis Kalanick
Gupta's professional history with Kalanick stretches back to 2012 when he invested in Uber as a Goldman Sachs vice president before joining the company full-time in 2013. On Wednesday, Gupta shared that A*, the venture capital firm he co-founded in 2020 after spending three years at Opendoor, backed Atoms in what marked the largest investment in the history of the fund. According to his LinkedIn profile, Gupta is stepping down from A* to fully assume his new responsibilities as CFO at Atoms.
The migration of early-era Uber executives and investors to Atoms highlights Travis Kalanick's reliance on a trusted, familiar leadership core as he shifts his focus toward heavy industries and robotics. Uber's participation as an investor in the latest round also signals a healed corporate relationship, tying the ride-hailing giant financially to Kalanick's next industrial chapter.
Source: TechCrunch
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