Welcome to the twenty-eighth edition of our newsletter, as we turn one year old and close our pre-seed round! This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products.

With our team members joining millions of people training for long-distance runs, we looked at the impact of air pollution on marathon training in our latest article. Many runners will be painfully aware of the impact on their long-term health - or even see acute impacts in very high pollution or if they suffer from respiratory or cardiovascular conditions. However, many will be unaware of the impact on performance from training and competing in elevated pollution levels. Many will try to avoid busy roads, but may not consider the spread of particulate matter from sources such as wood burning. To keep up to date on air pollution and its impact on you, join us on our mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.

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Hot off the press

• we have closed our pre-seed round. Huge thank you to all our investors who are backing us - we will be introducing them in this and future editions. We will be running a rolling close and have space for strategic investors who wish to join (SEIS available)
• we hit this funding milestone on our one year anniversary of incorporating Air Aware Labs! Thank you to everyone who indulged our retrospective of the past year. We are very excited about year 2!
• yesterday we pitched at the JustTransition Demo Day, marking the end of that accelerator run by Startup Discovery School - see photo above. We were also invited to judge the latest GoodTech Ventures cohort showcase and have renewed respect for anyone who needs to judge early-stage start-up potential on a daily basis!

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‍Go with us towards clean air

• we joined an Indian delegation at Imperial College I-X this week and continue to build our user base in India. We are experimenting with targeted social media for India and welcome any support in helping that land!
• with the arrival of Ksenia Fortin-Brazeau alongside Lía Budnik and Tom Maverley, we feel incredibly well served on our marketing efforts. We are looking for additional support on our B2B outreach - please get in touch
• we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to Stefanie Mulder Ella Doran James Groves Richard Coates Max Heal Shailaja Annamraju Tabitha Luxmoore-Styles Roddy Weller Katherine Prescott Daniel Wardle Dr Emre Eren KORKMAZ Emmie Faust Diana Peeva FCIPD Ryan Purvis David Savage Roxane Sanguinetti Theresia M.R. Heinrich Tamara Polajnar Mike Freely Jasmin Thomas Dr Moira Nicolson Steven Lewis Barney Weston Richard Friend Brigitte Small FRSA Alice Ivanoff-Boardman Felix de Grey Zareen Ali Yury Shlahanau Véronique Rapetti Gabriel Pizzolante Mitesh Jagatia Sam Simpson Amandine Alexandre Caty Keen. We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.

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Meet the team

‍This week, we are meeting Kitty Harris one of our very first investors. Kitty works for Regent Capital Ventures an early-stage investor dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs who are driving meaningful social and environmental change. Kitty says "with a keen eye for innovative solutions, we focus on businesses that blend profitability with purpose, ensuring long-term impact for communities and the planet. Founded by entrepreneurs, RCV understand that growing a business is a journey. We have a broad skill set, aim to see the bigger vision, and like to think nothing is impossible. Our founding team’s experience include scaling successful businesses in both the private and charitable sectors. We keep things simple. We’re honest and up-front. We try to understand as much as we can, in the hope of being as useful as we can.

"RCV has cultivated a portfolio of purpose-driven companies in sectors such as sustainable fashion technologies, renewable energy and well-being. Our recent investment into Air Aware Labs was driven by this desire to support innovative ideas, inspiring founders and ultimately to get a better handle on the air quality in London! The majority of our investments are into female led businesses though we have work to do on supporting other underrepresented entrepreneurs. We believe this will create a more inclusive, imaginative and sustainable future.

"When not collaborating with founders, RCV can be found volunteering, supporting female founders via the Alma Angels network, party planning, baking office cakes and taste testing London’s ‘fat chip’ offering (please reach out to Kitty Harris for top recommendations!)"

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‍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