Key takeaways:
- FireSwarm Solutions was Shift's 2025 Impact Grant recipient, recognized for reimagining how autonomous technology could change wildfire response
- When we selected them, they were a focused early-stage team with a compelling vision and genuine urgency behind it
- In the time since, FireSwarm has been selected for NATO DIANA's 2026 Challenge Programme, named one of Canada's Top 50 Most Investable Cleantech Companies, secured an ITB investment from KONGSBERG Canada, and co-founder Melanie Bitner was named a BC Business Women of the Year
- Their trajectory is exactly what this grant was built to support
- Applications are now open for the 2026 Shift Impact Grant
The wildfire solution that started in our own backyard
When we launched the Shift Impact Grant in 2025, we were looking for a specific kind of organization. Not the most polished pitch or the most media-ready story, but a team genuinely reimagining something, taking a real, stubborn problem and approaching it from a direction that most traditional systems weren't set up to fund or even recognize.
FireSwarm Solutions was that team, and the timing made it impossible to look away.
At the time, British Columbia was in the middle of one of its most devastating wildfire seasons on record. As a company headquartered in BC, this wasn't a distant news story. There was smoke in the air and evacuations in communities we know. FireSwarm was building autonomous, ultra heavy-lift drone systems to change how we detect and respond to wildfires, in the same province that was burning around them. There's something clarifying about building a wildfire solution while the problem is unfolding outside your window.
What drew us to them wasn't just the technology. It was the clarity of the mission and the fact that their work treated sustainability and resilience as the same conversation rather than separate ones. That resonance stuck with us, and it still does. As co-founder and CMO Melanie Bitner put it:
Shift's support has played an important role in helping FireSwarm advance from early development toward operational deployment, supporting the continued refinement of our AI-enabled technology designed to assist communities and responders in increasingly complex disaster response environments.
“Reimagining” in practice
Our theme for the 2026 Shift Impact Grant is Reimagining. Even though it was not our theme last year, FireSwarm was doing something that really exemplified the concept of reimagining in practice. They were taking a sector defined by legacy systems, limited budgets, and enormous operational risk, and asking whether autonomous coordination could make the whole thing work differently.
That kind of thinking doesn't come from trying to fit into an existing category. It comes from being willing to start with the problem instead of the product roadmap. The wildfires were getting worse, the response capacity wasn't keeping up, and something needed to change structurally. FireSwarm was building toward that structural change, and doing it as an early-stage climate tech company operating in one of the most underfunded corners of emergency response.
The 2026 Shift Impact Grant: $25,000 for climate action
Shift launches the 2026 Impact Grant: $25,000 USD for a nonprofit, social venture, or early-stage startup reimagining what's possible at the intersection of technology and climate action. Applications are open now through July 2, 2026.
Read MoreWhat a year of momentum looks like
A lot can happen in a year when a team is moving with clear focus. Here's where FireSwarm has landed since we announced them as our 2025 grant winners.
NATO DIANA's 2026 Challenge Programme. FireSwarm was selected to join the 2026 cohort of NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, marking a major milestone in their growth as a dual-use technology leader in wildfire and emergency-response logistics. They'll participate under the Operations in Extreme Environments challenge area, advancing and testing their ultra heavy-lift autonomous aerial system designed to enable faster, safer, and more effective wildfire detection and logistics response across both civil and defence applications, addressing urgent operational needs across the Alliance.
FireSwarm is built for the realities of today's evolving emergency and infrastructure risk landscape," said Alex Deslauriers, Co-founder and CEO. "Being selected by NATO DIANA's Challenge Programme from a record 3,680 submissions across the Alliance reinforces the growing need for autonomous systems that improve operational readiness and response in the toughest environments and conditions.
Foresight Canada's Top 50 Most Investable Cleantech Companies. In late 2025, FireSwarm was recognized by Foresight Canada as one of the country's top climate tech companies ready to scale, selected by an independent panel of investors from across the clean technology space. Their platform was recognized for its dual-use applications spanning wildfire suppression, disaster response, infrastructure protection, and remote operations.
KONGSBERG Canada ITB investment. Announced at CANSEC 2026, FireSwarm welcomed an Industrial and Technological Benefits investment from KONGSBERG Canada, a company with more than a century of experience delivering defence and security technologies shaped by Arctic climate and NATO collaboration. The investment will accelerate FireSwarm's transition from development to deployment through continued R&D, operational exercises, and strategic hiring.
BC Business Women of the Year. Co-founder and CMO Melanie Bitner was named a 2026 BC Business Women of the Year, recognized as a wildfire technologist rethinking emergency response at a moment when BC and the broader region are being forced to adapt at speed.
Each of these milestones tells a different part of the same story: a climate tech company doing serious work, earning serious recognition, and building the kind of momentum that compounds. Taken together, they paint a picture of a team that was already moving and has only accelerated since.
We're proud to be a small part in FireSwarm’s story
The work has always belonged to the FireSwarm team, but we're glad we could be part of their mission early on. They came in with the technology, the drive, and a clear sense of purpose already in motion. What Shift’s Impact Grant offered was support at a specific moment: unrestricted funding and visibility to an audience that genuinely cares about this kind of work. Sometimes that's exactly what it takes to go from building to deploying.
Looking back, what stands out isn't the grant itself, it's what FireSwarm did with the runway. Selected by NATO from 3,680 companies, recognized among Canada's top climate tech companies, and backed by a globally respected industrial partner, they've built the kind of story we hoped this grant would tell.
We're looking for that same energy in this year's applicant. The team that's already moving, already building something the conventional path wasn't set up to support, and that could use the funding and visibility to go further, faster.
FireSwarm Solutions Wins $25,000 Grant to Develop AI Firefighting Drones for 24-Hour Wildfire Response
Read MoreThe 2026 Shift Impact Grant is open now
If you're working on something in the sustainability space and this feels like it's written for you, it probably is. Applications are open now through July 2, 2026. The winner receives $25,000 USD in unrestricted funding, and the application is designed to be low-barrier because doing the work is where the focus should be.
We’d love to see what you're building. Apply now for the 2026 Shift Impact Grant.
