Globhe

Solve Innovation Future's (SIF) founding belief is that combining impact and business can yield financial and societal returns, and partnerships are the catalyst for success. SIF investees and their enterprises are increasingly becoming the driving force behind innovative solutions to pressing social and environmental problems. However, in order to scale their impact and achieve their goals, they often require access to funding, expertise, and networks that they may not possess on their own. Brokered and witnessed firsthand, partnerships established between SIF investees and external parties focus on for-profit solutions that address problems at scale and positively impact sectors such as emergency prevention and remediation of natural disasters, upcycling within the global textile and materials industry, and supporting the neurodivergent workforce. Setting up partnerships to drive solutions at scale is an art and a science that is rooted in values, impact, and profit.

When SIF investee Globhe was founded in 2015, Helena Samsioe knew she was building a tech platform that had the potential to capture a world’s worth of data. Using ‘crowddroning’, Globhe’s platform allows clients – businesses, governments, organizations, and researchers – to request and retain real-time or ongoing worldwide high-resolution drone spatial data to respond to emergency social and environmental disasters. Globhe can be used from prevention to recovery planning to more broadly fight climate change, and build a sustainable future.

Globhe has expanded operations to more than 134 countries and works with more than 8,000 drone operators who have participated in various projects around the world focused on flood prevention, malaria prevention, wildfires, reforestation, and earthquakes.

In 2017, Globhe was contracted by UNICEF Malawi and the Government of Malawi, a country that continuously faces catastrophic flooding – only worsening due to the effects of climate change – to collect high-precision digital surface and terrain models for key flood areas in Malawi to prepare for and mitigate damage. Not only did this save 80%of the costs to map and track this information, carbon emissions were significantly lower (the alternative is ground personnel and airplanes), and has informed preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives at scale that impact the entire population of Malawi's 19.89 million people.

Solve Innovation Future invested equity in Globhe during the $1.92M seed round in 2022. Through this investment, Samsioe shared that, “for Globhe to be part of MIT Solve and receive investment through SIF has meant increased exposure, increased credibility, and increased access to key actors. Fundamental components when we are growing rapidly - geographically, financially and impact-wise.”