History

Solv was founded in 2021 by Alexander D’Hooghe, former MIT faculty and founder of ORG - a design firm working on complex infrastructure and urban projects in Europe and the US.

For 20 years, ORG tackled projects where technical quality wasn't enough. Success depended on navigating fragmented governance, conflicting stakeholder interests, and high public scrutiny. Projects like the Oosterweel Ring in Antwerp, Amsterdam's Sprong over het IJ, and coastal defense infrastructure taught us that stakeholder dynamics are often the critical variable. 

We started building internal tools to map these dynamics - algorithms that modeled stakeholder positions, values, and alignment. What began as a way to support our own design work proved valuable to clients managing similar complexity in policy, real estate, and infrastructure. 

When advances in AI and natural language processing made it possible to scale this approach, we spun out SOLV as an independent platform. 

The platform launched in 2022 with early clients in Belgium and the Netherlands. By 2023, we added policy-making capabilities and secured recurring contracts. In 2024, we rebuilt the platform for flexibility and scale, expanded to international clients, and began working with consultancies who integrate SOLV into their own delivery models. 

Today, we work with governments, agencies, industry associations, and advisory firms across Europe and the US—helping them navigate complexity with structured intelligence.