Travis Kalanick becoming CEO of City Storage Systems, which focuses on repurposing real estate, and says his new fund is acquiring a $150M controlling interest
The company was formerly called CloudKitchens and was led by Diego Berdakin, an early Uber investor. — Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has found his new job.
Context & Ripple Effects
Days after unveiling the 10100 fund around “large-scale job creation” in real estate and e-commerce, Travis Kalanick is making its first big move: a $150M controlling interest in City Storage Systems, the company formerly known as CloudKitchens and previously led by early Uber investor Diego Berdakin.
Kalanick is taking the CEO seat himself rather than backing someone else's venture — and the corpus shows where the real-estate thesis leads: the parent company was eventually renamed Atoms, pivoting toward “gainfully employed robots,” alongside reported plans for a self-driving car company with Uber's backing.
First-order effects
- Kalanick replaces Diego Berdakin at the helm of City Storage Systems, putting the ex-Uber CEO in direct operational control of a real-estate repurposing business rather than acting as a passive investor through 10100.
Second-order effects
- CloudKitchens' model of converting property into food-prep space gives delivery platforms and restaurant operators a way to expand without storefronts, shifting site-selection economics toward whoever controls the kitchen real estate.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Kalanick is assembling a physical-world portfolio — repurposed real estate, robotics via Atoms, and reportedly autonomous vehicles — positioning 10100 as a holding structure for infrastructure-style bets rather than conventional software startups.
The trend: Post-Uber, Kalanick is redeploying founder capital into physical infrastructure — real estate, robots, and autonomy — instead of the consumer-software playbook that built Uber.