Kevin Damoa got here face-to-face with the challenges and risks of shifting freight from street to rail as a 17-year-old U.S. Military enlistee tasked with loading tanks and Bradley preventing autos onto the railroad. It was — because the mechanical engineer and founding father of Glīd Applied sciences places it — the start of his love story with logistics.
It’s a love story that continued via a 13-year stint with the U.S. Air Drive Nationwide Guard as a firefighter to his roles within the non-public sector at SpaceX, Northrup Grumman, Romeo Energy Tech, and Xos Vans — to call just a few.
But it surely wasn’t till 2022, whereas engaged on the Harley-Davidson e-bike model spinoff Serial 1, that Damoa circled again to the road-to-rail drawback.
“I had my come-to-Jesus moment,” Damoa recalled of the pivotal second when he determined to strike out on his personal. “I looked around the globe, and I was like, ‘OK, rail is broken, ports are really congested, roads are congested, the fatalities on roads are crazy. Why aren’t more folks using rail?’ And then, my 17-year-old self tapped me on the shoulder, was like, ‘Because it’s hard to get things from road to rail.’”
Damoa pinpointed the issue: the complicated, multi-step course of shifting a container from a ship to a freight prepare. He based Glīd Applied sciences to try to resolve it. The California-based startup (pronounced Glide) is among the many 20 Startup Battlefield finalists competing at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
Glīd isn’t making an attempt to compete with trains. As an alternative, the corporate is targeted on that first mile from port to railroad, in addition to road-to-rail functions inside giant industrial parks.
“The first mile is where all your problems happen,” he stated. “This is where you unload ships and stack up your containers and then figure out where they’re intended to go to. That process is still broken and involves a bunch of steps.”
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
As soon as a ship arrives at port, a crane picks up a container and hundreds it onto a hostler truck, a car used to maneuver brief distances, the place it’s then pushed to a tall stack. A forklift picks up the container and strikes it into the stack. Later, a forklift is used to load it again onto a hostler truck, which then drives over to the railroad. A forklift or crane is then used to choose up the container and cargo it on a freight prepare, the place it waits.
Glīd has developed a number of {hardware} and software program merchandise to hurry up and cut back the price of getting transport containers to the railhead and ultimately their vacation spot. Its first is GliderM, a hybrid-electric car with a hook on the again that may choose up and transfer 20-foot containers on to the rail with out the necessity for forklifts of hostler vans.
The startup can be creating logistics software program and an armored, low-profile platform known as the Rāden that may slide below any trailer, elevate it, and transfer autonomously alongside the street to rail.
“You can look at us as the baton racer,” he stated, describing the system. “We hand that load off to the next to the middle mile; the name of the game is utilization — you know, how many containers can we get within that first mile, within a day, in order to maximize or optimize our costs.”
And the price construction is compelling. By chopping out forklifts and hostler vans and utilizing the railroad as a substitute of semi vans for supply, Damoa stated he is ready to supply the corporate’s mobility-as-a-service system at a fraction of the price. Clients are charged a$300,000 subscription a 12 months, which provides them entry to a GliderM or Rāden and their logistics software program known as EZRA-1SIX. Clients are additionally charged 8 cents per ton per mile. Damoa stated that’s a deal since firms are getting a prepare, truck, and a forklift multi functional, plus the service. By comparability, the per ton per mile value at present — if the transloading, prepare, and truck charges are included — is about $2.27, in line with Damoa.
The 14-person startup is targeted on brief rail methods, ports that personal the observe, and industrial parks. Glīd has already signed offers with 4 short-line railroads in addition to the Port of Woodland in Washington, Taylor Transport out of Vancouver, and Nice Plains Industrial Park, a 6,800-acre website in Kansas with 30 miles of inside rail traces and an onsite transload facility.
Glīd’s tech and enterprise mannequin has additionally resonated with buyers who see potential within the tech and enterprise mannequin.
Damoa stated the primary couple of years was onerous, noting he couldn’t pay an individual to spend money on Glīd. However as soon as he went via the Antler startup accelerator program, which gave him vital CEO and pitch abilities, the startup had extra success. Glīd obtained an funding earlier than constructing its first prototype.
The startup introduced in July it raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed funding spherical led by Outlander VC, with participation from Draper U Ventures, Antler, The Veteran Fund, M1C, and angel buyers. It has since raised extra, placing its whole at $7.1 million with a post-money valuation of $35 million.
If you wish to be taught extra about Glīd from the corporate itself — whereas additionally trying out dozens of others, listening to their pitches, and listening to visitor audio system on 4 completely different phases — be a part of us at Disrupt, October 27 to 29 in San Francisco. Study extra right here.
