Welcome to another week of Shaken Not Burned!

This week Giulia interviews Paul Finch, co-founder at Growth Studio, a London-based accelerator helping early-stage startups seeking solutions to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. In the interview, Paul and Giulia discuss the issue of air quality, how the startups accelerator is working to change the investment landscape, and how the programmes are going.

For companies in this space, it can be very challenging to raise initial investment to build a viable business: Paul and his colleagues want to demonstrate to venture capitalists that they can be as compelling as more traditional investments. Solutions to improve air quality, in particular, are few and far between. Even though it affects everyone around the world, air pollution remains an overlooked issue that requires systematic change and decisive action from governments, according to Paul. Yet, the technology to reduce it already exists and can be scaled up.

Growth Studio runs the Breathable Cities programme, now open in its second iteration. Last year’s cohort members include Applied Nanodetectors, which has developed an indoor air quality monitor for asthma sufferers, GoRolloe and The Tyre Collective, which are reducing pollution in the transport sector, Kleanbus, which retrofits diesel buses, Persium, which monitors air quality in cities with digital twins, and Hubl, which makes refrigeration on lorries and vans more efficient.

Growth Studio has also launched a new programme called GS Select, which will support selected companies in getting to market across 12 months, essentially becoming their head of growth. 

Thanks for joining us and don’t forget to listen to this week’s episode wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you enjoy the newsletter and if there’s anything you’d like to see more information about, you can email us at [email protected].

Thanks for joining us and don’t forget to listen to this week’s episode wherever you get your podcasts.