The engineer who stole 14,000 files from Google - and dodged prison with a Trump pardon - just landed a piece of Travis Kalanick's $1.7B empire. Jul 24, 2026 Follow Halfbanked on Google for more Moneywise news. You never know when you'll find yourself back in business with a former colleague. For Uber co-founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, his latest venture is bringing together people from his past - including a former Uber employee who was charged after stealing 14,000 files on his laptop as he jumped ship from Google. The money news that actually matters. Kalanick announced this week that his robotics company, Atoms, had raised $1.7 billion in a funding round that is backed by venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, and others including Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and... Uber. Kalanick was forced to step down as CEO of Uber in 2017 after complaints arose about the company's workplace culture, including discrimination and sexual harassment. Focus on robotics. In 2018, Kalanick invested $150 million in City Storage Systems, giving him a controlling interest in the company, which at the time had a focus of redeveloping real estate. The company was rebranded as Atoms in March of this year, with Kalanick announcing it would have a new focus on robotics in the mining and transportation industries. Then, in April, Atoms acquired Pronto, a heavy industry automation firm founded in 2018 by Anthony Levandowski. Levandowski, described by TechCrunch as "one of Silicon Valley's most infamous characters," gained said infamy at Google, as a pioneer of self-driving technology. He then heightened his infamous reputation when he was investigated for and charged with stealing trade secrets when he left Google to start self-driving tech firm Otto, which was then acquired by Uber. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2020, after a plea agreement that saw him plead guilty to one of 33 charges of trade secrets theft against him in a federal indictment. "Levandowski admitted that in 2016, as he was preparing to leave Google, he downloaded thousands of Project Chauffer (sic) [now known as Waymo] files onto his personal laptop," a 2020 release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of California says. At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who, according to an NBC report, "has been involved in Silicon Valley litigation for nearly five decades," called Levandowski's conviction the "biggest trade secret crime [he had] ever seen."

Travis Kalanick's Atoms raises USD 1.7 billion in a16z-led funding round; Ben Horowitz joins board. ANI 24 Jul 2026, 09:01 GMT+10 New Delhi [India], July 24 (ANI): Robotics firm Atoms has secured a USD 1.7 billion equity investment led by a16z, with co-founder Ben Horowitz joining its board, as the company consolidates multiple businesses under a unified Atoms equity structure, Travis Kalanick said. Kalanick shared the development via his official X account, stating Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are among the banks lending to the start-up as part of the deal. 'ATOMS is announcing a $1.7B equity investment with lead investor a16z and Ben Horowitz joining the board. As part of this investment we have merged our various businesses into one Atoms equity structure,' he said. He further stated, the launch of ATOMS, following years of stealth development, generated significant interest. While his vision letter had outlined the broader concept of Physical AI in industry, he wanted to use the moment to explain how that vision connects to the actual business ATOMS is building and the opportunity seen by a16z and other investors, he noted in the post. He noted, 16 years ago, he began a journey to digitise the physical world by using software to understand, predict and control it. 'Understand, predict and control the physical world with software. Building 'atoms-based' computers where CPU is manufacturing, storage is real estate, and network is transportation,' he said. Kalanick's first venture, Uber, focused on building a network for the physical world while CloudKitchens followed with a 'food computer' centred on manufacturing and real estate. Now, Atoms is the next step. 'We just launched that company - ATOMS. The vision is about the coming industrial revolution where large industrial economic sectors get completely digitized,' he noted. He further stated, industrial AI is getting ready to power the next industrial revolution adding 'Tesla calls it Amazing Abundance. We call it the Age of Atoms.' 'I want to thank a16z, and its many other capital partners for believing in Chinanationalnews and making the bet on the progress machines Chinanationalnews build to power this next industrial revolution. It's time to close the loop on some unfinished business,' he said. A16z, Bain Capital, Uber, Fifth Wall, Chemistry, Alpha Square Group were among the equity partners while Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Barclays had been the debt partners in this investment round, he noted. (ANI)