Welcome to the tenth edition of our newsletter - always climbing, as we progress our product, build our team and get public recognition. This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products.

This week The Lancet has published a study showing particulate matter air pollution was the leading contributor to the global disease burden in 2021. They calculate that it contributes 8% of loss of disability-adjusted life years. Particulate matter air pollution now ranks above high systolic blood pressure, smoking, and low birthweight and short gestation in its impact on disease burden. This is a shocking finding and makes us even more determined to scale up our work. Please join us on this mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.

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Hot off the press

• we have been featured in Springwise whose mission is "to give oxygen to the world's innovators developing solutions for positive change". It also partners with organisations such as The Earthshot Prize ChangeNOW and the Blue Earth Summit. Thank you Springwise!
• we are continuing our development work on feature roll outs for our Strava product. This has included some insightful user interviews, understanding what people like, what they are missing, and what they would prioritise in new features. We have another set of interviews planned - please shout if you want to be included!
• we're planning towards Clean Air Day (20 June) with NHS and Global Action Plan colleagues, as well as supporting the Patagonia Running up for Air challenge. Our approach to raising awareness of people's exposure to air pollution is really resonating with our partners!

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Go with us towards clean air

• we are aiming to bring together our pre-seed raise soon and have completed our data room for interested investors. We are also now featured on Rare Founders database. Please contact us if you want to be part of our mission and thank you to all who have shown their support already!
• we are preparing to welcome two interns from next month, joining us from US universities. This will really help us scale up and we will introduce them in the next newsletters. We would still love any support to our hard-pressed CTO on the software side - if you know anyone with coding skills who would love a cool project!

• we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to David Hinton Sam Simpson Candice Hampson Katherine Prescott Alexander Hirsch Julian Boaitey Julie Blane Berthe Latreille Ekaterina Manoilenko, MBA Guy Naor Clive Sanders Jonathan Dean Agnes Agyepong Douglas Squirrel Christopher Lascelles Shany Stephany Emma Williams Shenfeld Inbal Katherine Marcham Emily Horton Tom Parkes Claire Phelan Prithviraj Pramanik Jeffery Smith Andrea Sommer Angela Everitt Charlotte Gilbride Viola Jardon Tom Maverley Feras Nasr. We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.

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Meet the advisers

Our wonderful advisers are also providing huge help to us. This week we are meeting Helen Stewart , our strategic healthcare AI/ML adviser. Helen currently serves as Director of Offering Innovation at IQVIA, where she leads the full development life cycle and commercialisation of AI/ML Business to Business products and offerings. She also contributes significantly to the life sciences sector through her advisory roles at Zinc and KQ Labs at The Francis Crick Institute. Helen holds a strong belief in the transformative power of data-driven solutions in healthcare and environmental sectors. She brings a wealth of expertise in strategic thinking, and business development, making her an invaluable asset to our team.

Helen says: I am really excited to be part of Air Aware Labs’ journey. As a Scot with a passion for the outdoors, living in London, I am personally only too aware of the variation in and impact of air quality on health. The team’s commitment to driving meaningful behaviour change and improving public health is truly inspiring. I look forward to supporting their mission and contributing to the significant positive impacts on the quality of air that we breathe and the associated health outcomes.

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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!

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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