When Louise Thomas supported a local initiative to close the street outside her daughter’s school during drop-off and pick-up times, she didn’t stop at appreciating the improved air quality; she got curious. Over the next few years, she started digging into local air pollution data across South London, uncovering just how much variation existed and how little of it was being used to empower people’s daily decisions.
That curiosity led to Air Aware Labs, a startup co-founded with Dr. Will Hicks, a fellow clean air enthusiast with an academic background in environmental science. Together, they’re building smarter ways for people to understand and reduce their exposure to air pollution, starting with everyday outdoor activities.
Turning Air Pollution Data into Action
Air Aware Labs’ flagship product, Airtrack, launched in September last year. It’s a web-based dashboard (soon to be a mobile app) that integrates with Strava, and soon Apple Health, to help users understand how air pollution affects them while running, walking, or cycling outdoors.
The app highlights high-exposure hotspots along routes, shows time-of-day variations in air quality, and helps users make smarter decisions to reduce their exposure.
“It’s all about giving people the tools to protect their health. Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to public health, and yet it’s invisible for most people. We’re changing that.”
Growth Fueled by Product Fit and Smart Integrations
Airtrack’s growth didn’t come from flashy ad campaigns. It came from product-first thinking and tapping into the power of fitness communities.
In April last year, the team rolled out an early integration with Strava. That move proved powerful. Users who saw friends sharing workouts with air pollution overlays got curious and quickly became users themselves.
“We’ve grown to over 1,000 users, entirely organically. We’ve also logged more than 110,000 activities, which gives us a huge and growing dataset to work with.”
On the marketing side, the team has focused primarily on Instagram for brand presence and community-building. Paid ads are on the roadmap, especially with the mobile app launch imminent, but the early traction has been impressively lean.
B2B: The Bigger Vision
While Airtrack is making waves with health-conscious consumers, the long-term growth engine lies in B2B integrations.
“We’re building an API and enterprise-level analytics. Our priority is fitness apps, especially ones focused on outdoor training, but we’re also exploring employee wellbeing use cases.”
Think marathon training platforms that want to offer air quality insights, or companies buying bulk subscriptions for their staff and layering in analytics to support wellness initiatives.
The interest is already there: Air Aware Labs has secured five letters of intent from potential B2B partners and is actively shaping its go-to-market path.
Punching Above Their Weight
For a startup that’s just over a year old, Air Aware Labs is making moves that punch well above its weight class.
They’ve published two blogs with the World Economic Forum, working with their Clean Air Alliance, a group of 20+ international companies working on clean air solutions. That collaboration has been instrumental in building credibility and opening doors on the enterprise side.
“It shows this isn’t just a cool app. We’re part of a global movement to tackle air pollution through data and innovation.”
Why Resilience Is the Real Growth Hack
With £304,000 raised (a mix of equity and convertible loan), Air Aware Labs is well into its journey but not without lessons learned.
“It took us about nine months to raise that funding, and it wasn’t easy,” Louise says. “And the B2B side? Everything takes longer than you think.”
Her biggest takeaway? Resilience.
“You’ve got to be in it for the long run. The mission matters, but so does your ability to stick with it when progress feels slow.”
What’s Next?
With a mobile app launch just around the corner, growing user engagement, and active B2B conversations in motion, Air Aware Labs is heading into a pivotal growth phase.
From a school street initiative to a full-fledged environmental tech platform, this is a story of mission-driven innovation – one that’s helping people breathe better, move smarter, and take control of their health in the face of invisible threats.