about us

Flash Forest is a Canadian reforestation technology company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 2019 by Bryce Jones (CEO), Cameron Jones (COO), and Angelique Ahlström (CSO), the company was built to solve a structural problem: the scale of global forest loss has outpaced the capacity of manual reforestation methods.

Flash Forest combines drone systems, proprietary seed pod biology, AI-driven mapping, and high-resolution LiDAR to plant trees and monitor forests at industrial scale. The company serves government agencies, commercial forestry companies, Indigenous communities, and corporate partners across Canada and the United States.

Flash Forest operates two core services:

Automated Reforestation Flash Forest plants trees using a combination of heavy-lift UAVs, helicopter-assisted systems, and ground-based deployers — deploying proprietary seed pods at more than 30 per second per drone. Each seed pod is a custom-engineered casing that creates a controlled micro-environment around a native seed, protecting it on impact, retaining moisture, and supporting early root establishment. This eliminates the traditional two-year nursery phase and enables planting at a pace and scale that manual crews cannot match.

Forest Intelligence Service (FIS) Flash Forest's FIS replaces traditional aerial ocular surveys and ground-based sampling with complete, census-level forest inventories. Using drone-captured LiDAR and multispectral imaging processed by machine learning models, FIS delivers precise measurements of species composition, tree height, stem density, competition metrics, and canopy health across entire management blocks — producing a digital twin of the forest. FIS supports free-to-grow assessments, regeneration monitoring, harvest planning, and regulatory compliance reporting.

The two services are complementary: FIS informs where and what to plant, and post-planting FIS surveys track regeneration outcomes.

Flash Forest is headquartered at 501 Alliance Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, with operational facilities in Ontario and Alberta. Projects span the Canadian boreal forest zone — including British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec — as well as the United States, with work in the Pacific Northwest, Eastern regions, and Southern states.

The company's drone-based systems are designed for remote, steep, and post-wildfire terrain where ground-based access is limited or hazardous, extending its operational reach well beyond what manual planting or conventional survey crews can access.

Proprietary seed pod technology Flash Forest's seed pods are patented. Unlike bare-seed planting or conventional seedling transport, each pod delivers a native seed in a pre-loaded micro-environment — with nutrients, moisture retention, and biological support calibrated to boreal forest conditions. This removes the nursery phase, reduces seedling preparation time from two years to months, and enables high-velocity mechanical deployment at scale.

Multi-modal deployment Flash Forest is not a drone-only company. Depending on terrain, site conditions, and mineral soil exposure, the team deploys UAVs, helicopters, and ground-based vehicles — selecting the right tool for each block. This flexibility makes Flash Forest operable across terrain types that single-method competitors cannot efficiently serve.

Census-level forest intelligence Where conventional forest surveys rely on statistical sampling to extrapolate block-level data, Flash Forest's FIS measures every stem. High-resolution LiDAR creates a three-dimensional point cloud of the canopy and understory; machine learning models identify individual trees by species, height, and health status. The result is a complete inventory, not an estimate.

End-to-end capability Flash Forest is the only company offering both automated planting and drone-based forest intelligence under one roof. This means a single partner can handle site assessment, planting execution, and regeneration monitoring — removing coordination complexity for forestry and government clients.

• 3.3 million+ trees and seed pods planted
• 55+ projects completed
• 25+ native species planted
• 2 patented technologies
• $11.4M CAD raised in Series A funding (April 2023), co-led by TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good and OurCrowd
• $1.35M federal contract from Natural Resources Canada under the 2 Billion Trees program (2022) — the first time the program included drone-based reforestation
• Founded 2019 — operational across Canada and the United States

Flash Forest's partners span the public, private, and Indigenous sectors:

Government agencies Flash Forest holds contracts with federal and provincial government bodies. The company's FIS outputs are designed to meet provincial and federal regulatory reporting standards, including free-to-grow assessments.

Commercial forestry companies Flash Forest works with SFL (Sustainable Forest Licence) holders and silviculture contractors to plant reforestation blocks and conduct regeneration surveys across managed forestry areas. Services address both the planting gap created by labour shortages and the data gap created by low-resolution conventional surveys.

Indigenous communities Flash Forest actively partners with Indigenous communities across Canada, including in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. These partnerships are structured around shared values of ecological stewardship and long-term land restoration, with Indigenous communities recognized as stewards of the lands being restored.

Corporate partners Flash Forest works with corporate sustainability programs seeking verifiable, nature-based climate action. Project-level impact reports document trees planted, species mix, location, and survival data for ESG disclosures and sustainability reporting.

Research and NGO partners Flash Forest has been recognized by the World Economic Forum, WWF Canada, and MaRS Discovery District, and has received investment and recognition from Emissions Reduction Alberta and Innovation BC.

• Index Award 2021 — Winner, Home category (The Index Project, Denmark)
• 2 Billion Trees program — $1.35M federal contract, Natural Resources Canada (2022)
• Emissions Reduction Alberta — $1.8M grant, Food, Farming, and Forestry Challenge (2021)
• Innovation BC Ignite Award — $300K
• MaRS Climate Impact Challenge — selected as one of ten champions
• World Economic Forum — NatureTech cohort

To discuss a reforestation project, forest survey, or partnership:

• Email: info@flashforest.ca
• Web: flashforest.com/contact
• Address: 501 Alliance Avenue, Toronto, ON, M6N 2J1, Canada