The chief financial officer of City Storage Systems, the umbrella company of Travis Kalanick's foodtech juggernaut, left last month, two employees told Business Insider.
John Curran joined City Storage Systems in November 2021, when Kalanick, also a cofounder of Uber, raised $850 million at a $15 billion valuation in the company's last known fundraise.
Before City Storage Systems, Curran spent more than a dozen years at Amazon, where he was most recently the vice president of finance and chief financial officer for the international consumer business, per his LinkedIn. His social-media profile lists a January end date for his latest role, the chief financial officer of "stealth startup." (Current and former employees have long been instructed not to include the company's name on LinkedIn.)
Neither Curran nor a company spokesperson responded to requests for comment.
City Storage Systems is a multifaceted effort to reinvent food production, just as Kalanick aimed to upend the taxi industry by founding Uber. The CloudKitchens unit provides ghost-kitchen facilities, while the Otter division sells restaurant software. The company is creating robots for food production, including a bowl-filling machine that Kalanick said could reduce labor costs by up to 50%.
After the 2021 fundraise, business has been tougher for the startup. Tech and real-estate businesses such as City Storage Systems face challenges, including inflation and higher interest rates. Like many tech companies, City Storage Systems laid off employees in waves over 2023, including in real estate, recruiting, sales, and other divisions.
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