Air Aware Labs looks forward to 2026

Welcome to the fifty-second edition of our newsletter, as we see our first academic article go live, and take forward our outreach both in Europe and Asia! This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products.

This week, SSRN published our new preprint (currently under review in the Cities Journal) which explores how air quality evidence can evolve within transport and urban planning decision making. While statutory air quality assessments remain essential, our paper shows that relying on predicted changes in annual average concentrations can overlook the route-level and time-specific exposures people experience in practice. By complementing existing assessments with route-level exposure analytics (as well as providing residents with tools such as AirTrack to reduce exposure), planners can better evaluate schemes based on realised health outcomes, not just infrastructure delivered. In doing so, we also shift air quality from a purely retrospective compliance requirement towards a more proactive, health-centred decision-support tool. Please join us on our mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.

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Hot off the press

• as we enter 2026 we have been looking at our personal and team-level priorities, ready for our quarterly strategy session with advisers and investors in January
• next week we will be visiting Lyon on a visit organised by Business France to look at  partnerships with air quality and health-focused companies in the region. It will kick off with meeting Atmo Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
• we were pleased to take part in an event organised by China Ventures just before Christmas, where we pitched our work and its relevance in Asia. Beyond the pitch, it was a valuable chance to meet other international scale-ups and learn more about the developing innovation ecosystem in Hefei and China.

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Go with us towards clean air

• we aim to close our investment round in January, having received two new contributions just before Christmas - please get in touch if you would like to know more!
• we have started sending personalised analytics by email for some of our most active users - we welcome all feedback
• we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to Andre Dubuisson Aarsh Batra Anjanay Pandey Colette Harris Sital Joshi Ben Brabyn Marina Walker Richard Coates João A.B. Da Silva Natalie Smith Michael Solomon Marc Hartog FCCA Sam Simpson Clíona Jordan Fannie Serrano Michael Pan Ben Brothers Claudia Castro Faccetti Chris Oliver Balázs Scheidler Caroline Graybill. We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.

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Meet the team

This edition, we are meeting Lía Budnik, our marketing and communications officer.  Lia says “One year ago, I joined Air Aware Labs as the company’s first employee, guided by a strong mission and an evolving roadmap. Over the past year, that direction has become clearer as we’ve shaped the company vision, supported multiple launches, strengthened our brand and digital presence, worked on website designs and redesigns, participated in industry events, and even hosted a webinar in Spanish!

"From that first day, this journey has been full of learning, growth, and impact. Through all the progress - and the inevitable startup chaos - I couldn’t have asked for a more welcoming and collaborative team to be in the same boat with. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far and really look forward to continuing this work and helping turn our vision into a reality.”

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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

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