Travis Kalanick's Atoms hires former Uber CFO Gupta
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Gautam Gupta, Uber's former finance chief under Kalanick, announced via social media on Wednesday that he has joined Atoms as CFO, stepping down from his VC firm A* to take the role.
- Atoms raised $1.7 billion last month, with Uber itself participating as an investor — reportedly contributing $100 million — reuniting the company with the founder it pushed out in 2017.
- Kalanick framed the funding round as 'unfinished business' to complete the 'bits-to-atoms story arc' started at Uber and continued at CloudKitchens (Atoms' former name).
- Atoms earlier this year acquired mining autonomy startup Pronto, run by former Uber self-driving engineer Anthony Levandowski, and has staffed up with multiple former top Uber employees.
- Gupta spent more than four years at Uber, leaving in July 2017 just weeks after Kalanick resigned as CEO; he first invested in Uber in 2012 while a VP at Goldman Sachs and joined the company in 2013.
- A*, the VC firm Gupta co-founded in 2020 after three years at Opendoor, made its largest investment ever in Atoms as part of the recent funding round.
- Kalanick has said Atoms will focus on mining, food, and transportation, though his public comments lean more toward wanting to 'go up against the final boss, Nature and its fierce resistance to change.'
Why it matters: The hiring cements Atoms as a Travis Kalanick reunion project — Uber itself is now an investor, reportedly putting in $100 million of the $1.7 billion round — and gives the startup a CFO who personally backed Kalanick when Uber was a scrappy pre-IPO bet, now writing a seven-figure check from his own fund to follow him again.
