Bringing air quality monitoring to Berlin.

Urban Blueprint

Berlin, DE

Berlin’s City Council was searching for tech solutions to detect the most dangerous pollutants resulting from road traffic, and to monitor the city’s air quality.

We saw this challenge as a potential testbed for air-quality startup Airly. With our help, Airly ran a pilot and deployed their sensors in Berlin: providing citizens with real-time insights on air quality throughout the city, while gathering operational and business insights to be leveraged when approaching new cities.

Where it started

Urban Impact first met Airly's founder at a startup pitching event during a Polish delegation visit to Berlin. The Krakow-based startup had developed air quality sensors that were accurate, easy to install in public spaces, and dramatically cheaper to operate at scale than traditional measurement stations. With unit economics around 100 times lower than official monitoring stations, plus a citizen-facing platform with predictive forecasting, Airly offered cities a new way to monitor air quality. Thousands of sensors were already installed worldwide. The technology was proven. Their next step was Germany.

Germany is a demanding market for environmental technology. City administrations move slowly, procurement is complex, and trust is built over time. Additionally, Airly faced another challenge: as an early-stage company, they had no German-speaking team and no Country Manager. They needed a way to test the market, build early traction, secure pilot projects, and understand how Germany worked before making larger investments.

Urban Impact became their local partner.

Our role

Opening the door to Berlin

We started by introducing Airly to Berlin's urban innovation ecosystem. At the time, Berlin's clean air strategy relied on 16 official measurement stations. The network produced reliable data, but it was expensive to operate, limited in coverage, and offered little that citizens could interact with directly. We worked with city stakeholders to demonstrate what Airly's technology could add: a denser sensor network, predictive forecasting, significantly lower operating costs, and a testing process that allowed the city to verify performance before making any larger commitment. The first step was a presentation at InfraLAB, Berlin's utility innovation accelerator at EUREF-Campus, where the city's main public-private utility companies explore and test new technologies. Urban Impact organised Airly's presentation and deployed the company's first sensor at EUREF-Campus, one of Berlin's 11 future sites and designated innovation districts. Seeing the technology operating in a real urban environment helped build confidence among city stakeholders and led Berlin to launch a public tender for an air quality benchmark analysis.

Building the alliance

Getting a technology adopted at city level requires more than a single good meeting. Urban Impact worked to connect Airly with the organisations and people shaping Berlin's air quality agenda. We engaged researchers at the Technical University of Berlin, local air quality advocacy groups, city officials at the City Hall, and the team at CityLAB Berlin, Berlin’s public innovation agency. These conversations helped build awareness of the technology and created a network of stakeholders who who could advocate for the technology from within the city system.

The pilot

The work led to a formal tender for an air quality benchmark analysis. Urban Impact supported Airly in preparing the application, and Airly secured the pilot. From March to June 2020, Airly's sensors were tested alongside Berlin's official measurement stations across multiple locations. The pilot demonstrated that the sensors could deliver reliable, local air quality data across different urban environments while operating at a fraction of the cost of the existing network.

Making sense of the German market

Alongside the pilot, Urban Impact helped Airly build a stronger understanding of the German market. We analysed the regulatory landscape, identified barriers to wider sensor adoption, assessed the political momentum around urban air quality, and positioned Airly's solution against local competitors. We also supported the public sector sales team in developing dedicated pitch and marketing materials for Germany, giving them tools built around the local context rather than a generic international sales deck.

Continued engagement - Urban Advance

The pilot marked the beginning of a longer collaboration. Over the following year, Urban Impact continued to support Airly's positioning and growth in Berlin.

We introduced Airly's founder to the BMW Responsible Leaders network, one of Europe’s most influential leadership communities for responsible innovation, expanding both his professional network and the company's visibility in Germany. As Airly expanded its B2B and B2C offering, we helped identify early business customers, private users, and deployment opportunities across Berlin through our local network. Airly sensors were later installed at Radbahn, one of Berlin's best-known urban mobility and public space projects, providing another visible demonstration of the technology in a real-world setting.

The Berlin presence also supported Airly's fundraising journey. Their growing network, reference projects, and market traction contributed to investor interest, including backing from a Berlin-based, Polish-operated VC fund.

Where they are now

Over the course of a year, Airly secured a paid pilot with the City of Berlin, won a public tender with the Berlin Air Quality Lab, deployed sensors at Radbahn, joined the BMW Responsible Leaders network, gained its first paying customers in Germany, and developed a market strategy and sales materials the team could continue using independently.

Berlin became Airly's gateway into the German market. It provided the company's first reference projects, first paying city customer, and early proof that the technology could succeed in one of Europe's most demanding urban environments. Urban Impact was the partner who made that entry possible.