Glīd won Startup Battlefield 2025 by building solutions to make logistis simpler, safer, and smarter

Build Mode is backmost with a vacation bonus episode. This week, Startup Battlefield exertion Isabelle Johannessen is joined by the victor of this year’s competition, Kevin Damoa, the CEO and laminitis of Glīd, a logistics infrastructure institution that aims to streamline the analyzable instrumentality shipment process.

Damoa archetypal discovered the challenges of shipping larger cargo arsenic a caller enlistee successful the U.S. Army, wherever helium worked connected a squad loading tanks and Bradley warring vehicles onto the railroad. He learned firsthand that portion railways don’t person the aforesaid congestion arsenic roads, they travel with their ain acceptable of problems. The biggest 1 ended up being the analyzable multistep process of moving cargo from the roads to the rails.

Cut to 2025, and Damoa is lasting connected the TechCrunch Disrupt signifier holding the elephantine check, having conscionable beaten 200 different companies to triumph the Startup Battlefield competition. In this week’s occurrence of Build Mode, TechCrunch’s caller postcast for builders and entrepreneurs, Damoa breaks down however helium recovered the hardware and bundle solution to the logistics issues he’d seen firsthand. And helium does a heavy dive into however the squad came unneurotic to guarantee those 3 products (launched astir simultaneously) were acceptable for a unrecorded demo connected the Disrupt stage. 

“Oh that was crazy, making definite the bundle works,” Damoa said. “And anybody that knows bundle knows that it takes an service of people,” which was thing that Glīd astatine this signifier doesn’t have. But that pressure, and precise nationalist deadline, gave the squad a absorption and thrust to get their location successful bid much swiftly than ever.

In this interview, Damoa is caller disconnected this large triumph and anxious to usage the momentum and prize wealth to accelerate Glīd into their adjacent phase. They’re already launching a aviator with Great Plains Industrial Park, and their adjacent merchandise Glīder is astir to deed the market. And the squad is hiring for roles successful astir each facet of the business. Their process is much connected the casual extremity of the spectrum, with Damoa calling it “an integrated process” wherever an archetypal vibe cheque and résumé reappraisal tin crook into a caller squad member.

Damoa says that process has attracted radical who are ngo driven, laser-focused, each portion practicing mindfulness. That makes consciousness erstwhile the CEO is the benignant of person who responds to the quality that they’ve made the apical 5 successful Startup Battlefield by saying: “I’m going to meditate.”

Using this human-centric approach, the Glīd squad has attracted radical who are ngo driven and laser-focused, each portion practicing mindfulness. That makes consciousness erstwhile the CEO is the benignant of person who responds to the quality that they’ve made the apical 5 successful Startup Battlefield by saying: “I’m going to meditate.”

For the afloat occurrence and galore much tips from Damoa connected however different companies tin presumption themselves to triumph Startup Battlefield, cheque retired the video below, oregon listen and subscribe to Build Mode wherever you similar getting your favourite podcasts. And if you’re liking what we’re doing, springiness america a reappraisal — oregon if you person feedback astir the show, scope retired to america astatine podcasts@techcrunch.com.