The enterprise of transferring items in america is dominated by vehicles, which handles about two-thirds of the 20.2 billion tons of freight that’s transported yearly. Parallel Programs founder and CEO Matt Soule needs to vary that by placing a contemporary autonomous and electrical twist on the centuries-old railroad system.
The Los Angeles-based firm is constructing battery-powered autonomous freight expertise that works with current freight vehicles and integrates with current prepare management software program. Soule’s pitch: Parallel’s system makes it cheaper for corporations to make use of rail — not vehicles — for short-distance deliveries.
Rail has been historically underutilized as a result of trains are sometimes powered by massive and costly locomotives that pull lots of of freight vehicles at a time over lengthy distances, Soule defined to TechCrunch. Companies usually flip to vehicles for transferring freight shorter distances.
Parallel Programs developed a system that enables prepare vehicles to connect and detach autonomously. This implies corporations can use Parallel’s tech for quite a lot of completely different supply sizes and people don’t need to manually join and disconnect the vehicles — a harmful course of. Parallel’s tech additionally permits freight vehicles to brake considerably faster than current trains, Soule added.
“We’re utilizing a special bodily structure to perform truck aggressive economics at small scale relatively than large scale,” Soule mentioned. “The automobile itself is suitable with current rail infrastructure. It’s designed and being demonstrated to function alongside conventional rail operations. We’re not proposing to interchange current freight trains with this.”
Parallel not too long ago was permitted by the Federal Railway Administration to start out piloting the tech in Georgia. This program will permit the corporate to check its tech-enabled trains alongside a 160-mile stretch between the Port of Savannah in Savannah, Georgia and a number of distribution websites within the state.
Parallel additionally not too long ago raised a $38 million Collection B spherical co-led by Anthos Capital and Collaborative Fund with participation from Congruent Ventures and Riot Ventures, amongst others. This brings Parallel’s complete funding to greater than $100 million. The recent capital will likely be put towards commercialization with the corporate hoping to host its preliminary business launch in 2026.
Sophie Bakalar, a accomplice at Collaborative Fund, advised TechCrunch that whereas Parallel doesn’t neatly match into its consumer-leaning generalist thesis, the agency was intrigued by the corporate after getting launched by way of an current founder of their portfolio.
Whereas Collaborative Fund doesn’t make investments on this space sometimes, delivery and the motion of products does have a huge impact on the patron corporations Collab is often backing, mentioned Bakalar, including that it’s onerous to go up an excellent alternative — even whether it is off-thesis.
“I feel this staff is actually uniquely-positioned to resolve this downside,” Bakalar mentioned. “Simply not many of us are going to have the ability to do it. I feel it’s a staff that has a founder-product match. It’s a large market and an enormous problem.”
Soule doesn’t have a background in rail, particularly. Nonetheless, he does have a historical past of working in regulated transportation. He spent 20 years in aerospace, 13 of which have been at SpaceX.
“We have been always growing new applied sciences,” Soule mentioned. “I labored in avionics, which is electronics and software program that controls the rocket and obtained extremely interested in how all these applied sciences may benefit different sorts of industries which have possibly not seen as a lot innovation.”
He launched the corporate in 2020 and now, 5 years later, Parallel has constructed out the expertise and is targeted on commercialization.
Whereas getting corporations to vary their delivery and distribution methods could possibly be a big feat, demand for various options is there, Soule mentioned. He added that that they’ve had curiosity from throughout the globe however plan to give attention to the U.S. and Australia for now.
This information additionally comes because the U.S. hangs in tariff limbo. If tariffs do find yourself going by way of, Bakalar predicts it might fire up extra demand for corporations like Parallel as corporations will doubtless be trying to lower prices in any means.
“This is sort of a generational innovation when it comes to freight and also you don’t see plenty of change within the freight business,” Soule mentioned. “However that is hitting on factors that matter.”
