Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick has publicly surfaced his physical AI startup, Atoms, which recently completed the acquisition of autonomous-haulage provider Pronto to serve as the core of its mining division 1 2.
The development was highlighted in a July 2026 social media post from TBPN, which quoted Kalanick describing the company’s appeal to prospective employees: “You’re not dropping an app in the App Store. You’re automating a 2 million pound machine” 3.
Atoms, which Kalanick reportedly ran in stealth for eight years, is organized around three divisions: food, transport and mining 1. The company’s stated mission focuses on deploying specialized, “gainfully employed robots” for high-cycle industrial environments, explicitly rejecting humanoid robots as spectacles unsuited for high-throughput commercial work 1 2.
The acquisition of Pronto provides Atoms with a tested, OEM-agnostic autonomous haulage system. Pronto reported that its technology hauled more than 2 million tons of material at Heidelberg Materials’ Lake Bridgeport quarry in Texas in under eight months 2. The company stated it is deploying its camera-based system, along with lidar and radar options for deep-pit hard-rock mining, across more than 100 trucks globally 2.
Pronto CEO Anthony Levandowski said joining Atoms provides the engineering depth and infrastructure to accelerate the deployment of autonomous haulage to mining operations of all sizes, not just the largest fleets 2.
The consolidation of Pronto into Atoms Mining reflects a broader push to apply AI and software-defined automation to heavy industry and resource extraction 1 4.
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