Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of our newsletter, as we start our first paid R&D project and plan out our remaining sprints to deliver our mobile app. This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products. And we have now hit 1500 followers!

As the New Year inspires many of us to pursue fitness goals, a new study highlights how air quality can impact your performance. The authors analysed more than 2.5 million marathon finish times and found that higher levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on race days were associated with slower average finish times—32 seconds slower for men and 25 seconds slower for women per 1 µg/m³ increase in PM2.5.  The impact on performance was typically more pronounced among faster runners, highlighting how air pollution can particularly affect those pushing their limits. These findings underscore the importance of using AirTrack to monitor air pollution exposure when planning your training and race schedules. To achieve your new year’s aspirations, please join us on our mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.

******************

Hot off the press

• we have started work with Sustrans and Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) to bring new ways of assessing air pollution impact in urban development initiatives. We are excited to have this opportunity, which has been keeping us busy over Christmas!
• today marks the start of our project with Imperial Elevate to help us deepen our market size analysis. Kaushal Mody will be leading this work and we will introduce him fully in our next edition
• we have completed our technical proof of concept for iOS mobile app with very positive results. We spent the end of 2024 planning out sprints for the first beta version of the app so that we start 2025 on a roll!

******************************

Go with us towards clean air

• Lía Budnik has been hard at work on our new marketing strategy and we appreciate any feedback on our impact and reach
• we will be recruiting users for user testing of the mobile app from late January - please contact us if you would like to be involved
• we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to Gideon Stott 🟡Gaia "G" Soykok Marjo Palanee Emily Pilsworth David Riallant Dr Moira Nicolson Beth Lore. We also wanted to reflect everyone we sent special thanks to for their work through the year: Dan Harris Sacha Manson-Smith David Janner-Klausner (he/him) Helen Stewart Tom Maverley Zhenghong Liu Dan Hardy Adesola Adebowale Jasmin Thomas Katherine Marcham Véronique Rapetti Nina Hampson Daniel Catindoy Roy Evangelista Lydia Jin Lila Goldberg Orlando Bell Fallon Parrish Mary-Julian Brewer Lía Budnik. We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.

***************

Meet the team

This week, we are meeting Tom Maverley, our Go-to-Market Adviser. Tom is a serial entrepreneur specialising in marketing and technology. Previously Tom co-founded two agencies and as a result, he has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands and hottest start-ups. Tom is an adviser to London-based creative technology start-up Workflow and Cambridge-based The Transformation Tour. In addition, Tom is a Visiting Fellow at Zinc and a Mentor at Jumpstart.

Tom says “Air Aware Labs is tackling one of the most pressing challenges of our time with cutting-edge innovation and a clear vision for impact. Joining as their Go-To-Market Adviser is an incredible opportunity to help scale a solution that has the potential to improve lives and redefine industry standards. I'm thrilled to contribute my experience to such a forward-thinking and mission-driven team."

*************

Get in touch

Please follow Air Aware Labs to stay in touch with our progress. If anything in this newsletter has piqued your interest, please send me (Louise Thomas) or William Hicks a message! You can also email us at hello@airawarelabs.com

******************

More newsletters

Although the Venture Builder has finished, we will never forget our fellow ZINC teams.  Please read and subscribe to newsletters of others in cohort 7:

• Pavandeep Rai here
• Marjo Palanee here
• Donna Egan here
• Josh Piddock here
• Guy Naor here
• Veronika Bridgman here
• Lisa Rickers here
• Natalia Baltazar here