Glīd, the ambitious mobility startup redefining how electric vehicles operate at scale, has raised $3.1 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate its mission of building fully autonomous, all-electric vehicles tailored for security, defense, and commercial logistics. The round was led by Outlander VC, with participation from Draper U Ventures, Antler, The Veteran Fund, M1C, and several strategic angel investors.

Founded by Kevin A. Damoa, a former aerospace and defense executive, Glīd isn’t just entering the EV market - it’s carving out a category all its own. With roots in veteran-led innovation and deep technical insight from sectors where failure isn’t an option, Glīd is quietly building military-grade mobility systems that have enormous commercial upside.

---

What Glīd Does

At its core, Glīd is building autonomous, electric multipurpose ground vehicles (MPGVs) designed for both defense and enterprise-grade operations. These aren’t just your typical delivery bots or EV vans. Glīd vehicles are built with battlefield-grade ruggedization, modular payloads, zero-emission powertrains, and AI-native autonomy stacks.

The platform supports:

• Logistics and transport automation across secured or remote areas
  
• Surveillance and perimeter security applications for military or industrial use
  
• Mission-specific configurations (supply runs, reconnaissance, mobile power, etc.)
  
• Fleet orchestration software for command-and-control management
  

What makes Glīd distinct isn’t just the electric drivetrain or even the autonomy - it’s the ability to adapt the core vehicle platform to unique, high-stakes use cases where legacy mobility solutions don’t stand a chance.

---

The Shift: Tactical Autonomy Meets Clean Tech

As the worlds of defense, security, and clean mobility collide, Glīd sits at a rare intersection. Traditional EV players focus on urban transportation or private ownership. Meanwhile, Glīd’s approach is infrastructure-agnostic, deployment-first, and built for the edge.

That’s where the real unlock happens.

Many founders looking to “do hardware” underestimate the importance of designing for constraint-first environments. Glīd didn’t start with what tech was possible - they started with what field operators actually need: durability, uptime, silence, stealth, and zero dependence on fuel supply chains.

Here’s the real insight for startup builders: building for resilience unlocks optionality. In other words, when your vehicle can operate in the most demanding, infrastructure-poor environments, it becomes exponentially easier to deploy in urban or enterprise settings. That’s not just an engineering insight - it’s a go-to-market strategy.

---

Market Tailwinds: Autonomy, Electrification, and Defense Modernization

The timing couldn’t be better for Glīd’s rise.

• Global defense spending reached $2.4 trillion in 2023, with autonomous and electrified vehicles becoming a key modernization focus across NATO, the US DoD, and allied nations. (SIPRI, 2024)
  
• The military electric vehicle market alone is projected to grow to $15.2 billion by 2030, fueled by strategic priorities around energy independence and emissions reduction in combat logistics. (Allied Market Research, 2024)
  
• On the commercial front, the autonomous logistics market is booming - with an expected CAGR of 21.7% through 2030, especially in mining, agriculture, and security-heavy industries. (Fortune Business Insights, 2024)
  
• And let’s not forget the EV tailwinds: Over 80% of commercial fleet managers now say electrification is “non-negotiable” over the next five years. (McKinsey, 2024)
  

Glīd isn’t just riding these waves - it’s fusing them into a unified thesis: future fleets need to be clean, smart, resilient, and ready for dual-use.

---

Where Glīd Is Going Next

With pre-seed funding locked in, Glīd is now focused on several critical milestones:

• Finalizing MVP platform testing with defense and security customers
  
• Securing pilot deployments in both public-sector and commercial environments
  
• Expanding the autonomy and fleet orchestration stack for seamless multi-unit coordination
  
• Building out the core engineering and operations teams across robotics, embedded systems, and mobility design
  

This is a team that’s not afraid of the trenches - literally and figuratively. With roots in aerospace, defense, and complex logistics, Glīd is taking a discipline-first approach to autonomous systems, avoiding the trap many mobility startups fall into: launching a product before it’s battle-ready.

---

A Founder With Field DNA

What makes Glīd particularly compelling isn’t just the product - it’s the leadership.

Kevin A. Damoa, Glīd’s founder and CEO, brings a rare mix of military-grade precision, deeptech systems thinking, and mission-driven clarity. A U.S. veteran and former Northrop Grumman and Virgin Orbit executive, Kevin has spent decades building vehicles for orbit, not just roadways. His experience scaling hardware-intensive programs across both private and government sectors gives Glīd a rare edge.

And that matters. In an industry where hype often outpaces reliability, founders with discipline tend to outperform those chasing sizzle. Hardware is hard. Regulated hardware? Even harder. But when you build it right - when you embed safety, security, and adaptability into the very core - you don’t just sell vehicles. You sell infrastructure-level trus