Glīd is building an autonomous shortcut to move freight from road to rail — catch it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Kevin Damoa, a 17-year-old US Army enlisted man, faced the challenges and dangers of transporting freight from road to rail, tasked with loading tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto railroads. That was — as the mechanical engineer and founder of Glide Technologies puts it — the beginning of his love story with logistics.

It’s a love story that lasted 13 years with the US Air Force National Guard as a private sector firefighter at SpaceX, Northrup Grumman, Romeo Power Tech, and Xos Truck.

But while working on the Harley-Davidson e-bike brand spinoff Serial 1, Damoa returned to the road-to-rail issue until 2022.

“I had a come-to-Jesus moment,” Damoa recalled of the pivotal moment when he decided to strike out on his own. “I looked around the world, and I thought, ‘Well, the rail is broken, the ports are really congested, the roads are congested, the road fatalities are crazy. Why aren’t more people using the rail?’ And then, my 17-year-old self tapped me on the shoulder, ’cause it’s hard to get things from road to rail.’

Damoa identified the problem: the complex, multi-step process of moving a container from a ship to a freight train. He established Glide Technologies Try and solve it. The California-based startup (pronounced Glide) is among the 20 Startup battlefield Competing in the finals TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.

Glid is not trying to compete with trains. Instead, the company focuses on road-to-rail applications in that first mile from port to railroad, as well as in large industrial parks.

“The first mile is where all your problems happen,” he said. “This is where you unload the ships and stack up your containers and then figure out where they want to go. That process is still broken and involves a bunch of steps.”

Once a ship arrives at the port, a crane picks up a container and loads it onto a hostler truck, a vehicle used to drive short distances, where it is driven into a long stack. A forklift picks up the container and moves it into the stack. Later, a forklift is used to load it onto a hostler truck, which then moves onto the railroad. A forklift or crane is then used to lift the container and load it onto a freight train, where it waits.

Glīd has developed a number of hardware and software products to reduce the cost of getting shipping containers by rail and ultimately to their destination. Its first is the GliderM, a hybrid-electric vehicle with a hook on the back that can lift and move 20-foot containers directly on rails without the need for hostler truck forklifts.

The startup is also developing logistics software and an armored, low-profile platform called Raden that can slide under any trailer, pick it up and move autonomously along a rail road.

“You can look at us as baton racers,” he said, describing the system. “We transfer that load to the next middle mile; the name of the game is utilization—you know, how many uncontainers can we get in that first mile, in a day, to optimize our costs.”

And the cost structure is compelling. By cutting out forklifts and hostler trucks and using railroads instead of semi trucks for deliveries, Damoa says he’s able to offer the company’s mobility-as-a-service system at a fraction of the cost. Customers are charged a subscription of $300,000 per year, which gives them access to a GliderM or Rāden and their logistics software called EZRA-1SIX. Customers are charged 8 cents per ton per mile. Damoa said it is a deal since the companies are getting a train, truck and a forklift all together and in service. By comparison, the cost per ton per mile today — if transloading, train and truck fees are included — is about $2.27, according to Damoa.

The 14-person startup focuses on small rail systems, track-owning ports and industrial parks. Glide has already signed deals with four short-line railroads, as well as Woodland Port in Washington, Taylor Transport in Vancouver and Great Plains Industrial Park, a 6,800-acre site in Kansas with 30 miles of interior rail lines and an onsite transload facility.

Glīd’s technology and business model have also resonated with investors who see the potential in the technology and business model.

Damoa said the first few years were tough, noting that he couldn’t pay a single person to invest in Glide. But once he got through it Antler Startup Accelerator ProgramWhich gave him critical CEO and pitch skills, the startup had more success. Glid received an investment before building its first prototype.

The startup announced in July that it had raised $3.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Outlander VC, with participation from Draper U Ventures, Antler, The Veteran Fund, M1C and angel investors. It has since raised more, bringing its total to $7.1 million with a post-money valuation of $35 million.

If you want to learn more about Glīd from the company — plus check out dozens more, listen to their pitches and listen to guest speakers on four different stages — join us at Disrupt October 27 to 29 in San Francisco. Learn more here.