Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is making moves. According to a report from Recode, Kalanick is acquiring a startup called City Storage Systems. THeir focus is to repurpose distressed real estate assets like abandoned strip malls and parking lots and turn them into spaces that’s welcoming to new industries, such as online retail and food delivery businesses.
According to a source, Kalanick will become to new CEO of the company and is investing $150 million into the 15-person startup. The amount will buy out most of the existing outside investors, including previous backers like venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, whose Social Capital led the company’s most recent financial round.
My new gig… pic.twitter.com/vpD528cdyf
— travis kalanick (@travisk) March 20, 2018
Super excited to be working with @travisk and the team at City Storage Systems & CloudKitchens building a global network of tech-enabled real estate https://t.co/cu5kWBOaH4
— Sky Dayton (@skydayton) March 20, 2018
Due to buying out most of the existing investors, Kalanick will not have controlling interest in the holding company. Another investor that’s involved is Sky Dayton, according to a tweet. Kalanick says that two of his businesses focuses are to buy and repurpose real estate assets in the food and retail space.
“There are over $10 trillion in these real estate assets that will need to be repurposed for the digital era in the coming years,” he wrote.
