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Air quality aggravates all over the world-from the poorest cities to the poorest, but what solutions is there to make our cities more breathable? Airly-A Polish startup that develops a global air quality platform, addresses the air pollution crisis by providing ultra-local and precise predictive data for governments, businesses and citizens to help them understand the air they breathe. He recently received a Round Pre-Grève investment of $ 2 million to increase his IA-based solution and his CEO, Wiktor Warchałowski, shared in front of trendy subjects what the startup hopes to achieve with the new investment, what are their Main challenges and what the startup hopes to make with the new investment, what their main challenges are and what shows in terms of growth and future plans.
Trendy subjects: What does the investment round of $ 2 million for your business mean and what do you expect to carry out with the funds collected?
Wiktor Warchałowski: Investment round money will help us reach two objectives. The first is to continue our mission: to evolve more quickly and implement our solution worldwide, helping to become a unique source of air quality data around the world. We also want to prepare a new version of our product – a system that maps air pollution using mobile sensor networks.
What is unique in your startup and the solution you provide to your customers?
Air quality is a subject widely discussed at the moment. What makes Airly unique is that we provide a complete solution to measure air quality. Our system consists of air quality sensors which measure three particle sizes (PM1, PM2.5, PM10) as well as No2, O3, SO3 and CO gases. Our devices measure air quality in real time, and the results are available immediately on our live air quality card for desktop and mobile devices. Thanks to our AI -based algorithm, we are able to provide an air quality forecast 24 hours a day, with 95%verifiability.
How is the idea of being born Aily?
Airly’s story begins in 2016 when I and my two colleagues who also graduated from the Technical University of Agh de Krakow – Michał Misiek and Aleksander Konior, were preparing to participate in a marathon during the winter. We felt that SMOG in the city has made training more difficult and designed a system using air sensors to let us know where the clean air to train. While the project materializes, we have managed to collect funds to build 100 air quality sensors and give them to people from different parties of Krakow to build a network in their hometown.
How did you manage to set foot on the market and win your first customers?
Our first initiative became a change of game for the Krakow community. The southern part of Poland had (and still has) a serious Smog problem, and the hyper-local network and in real time of air quality sensors has cast completely new light on the problem. The following customers were municipalities which, after hearing Airly in the media, wanted to launch similar networks. As there was an important demand for this type of solutions, companies also started to approach us. They quickly realized that joining the wrestling for clean air in Poland would add an excellent additional goal for their business.
What is your business model?
We of course sell our own sensors, but we also want to be considered as a data science company, which provides the richest and most in -depth set of current, historical and future data on air pollution. Our business model focuses on three different groups: local governments and municipalities, businesses and media wishing to use Airly Air quality data for their news. In addition, we recently launched an online store for individual customers who want to buy our sensors and help extend our global network.
What are your biggest investors and customers so far?
Our recent funding was led by Giant Ventures, technological companies focused on the objectives of several stages. The main providential investors also participated, in particular members of the families of Sir Richard Branson and Sir Ronald Cohen; The co-founder of Pipedrive, Martin Tajur,; Cherry Ventures and former CMO Spotify Sophia Bendz; The old CMO of Gojek Piotr Jakubowski; And the member of the Board of Directors of Henkel, Konstantin von Unger. The existing investor Wojtek Burkot (former Director of Engineering at Google) also participated in the round via his Bitspiration Fund Booster. The National Center for Research and Development of Poland has provided additional funding.
Regarding our customers, we are very happy to associate with companies such as Philips, Aviva, Veolia, Skanska, Pwc and Motorola to name a few.
What are the most recent innovations and projects you have worked on?
With Innogy Polska, we recently launched the smogo! Warsaw card 25 zero-emission cars by Innogygo! With air quality sensors, constantly explore the level of air pollution in Warsaw. This is the first mobile measure of air pollution on such a scale. Atmospheric pollution data is downloaded on a continuous street level from the street level from Innogygo! Users. They are used to update the smogo! Warsaw card.
Another very interesting project is the Romanian crowdfunding action was breathing (breathing Romania) that we drive with the local branch of Phillips. The first edition in early 2020 helps provide almost new air quality sensors throughout Romania. Currently, we are preparing for the second edition of the action that will not only take place in Romania but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.
Can you share more details on the research you conducted in April of this year?
Piotr A. Kowalski and Aleksander Konior from Airly have shown that there could be a correlation between higher levels of air pollution and a faster coronavirus propagation rate. The data also suggested that regions with higher levels of air pollution have been more seriously affected by the COVI-19 in the event of mortality and the general evolution of the disease.
What were the obstacles and challenges from the start? What challenges do you expect for the next 12 months?
The difficulty in the expansion of our system is caused by the fact that it takes time to build our network of air quality sensors in other countries. This is why we tried to make the installation of our sensors as simple as possible. Even a non -technical person can configure and launch our sensor in a very fast period. But this process becomes much faster as Airly becomes more popular in many regions of the world. Another thing is that we are looking for a way to engage adolescent users more to use our application daily, because they are the new generation, and they will strengthen the world of the future, hopefully, without air pollution.
What is, in your mind, Airly’s greatest success to this point?
The greatest success is the fact that we were right to assume that a solution like ours was necessary. An even greater achievement is the fact that our mission is understandable in every corner of the world and that our solution is adopted very quickly everywhere.
What will come for Airly?
We want to become a single source of air quality data in the world until 2025. We hope to reach places in the world, where the problem of air pollution is the most urgent. And help communities around the world solve their problems.