Promoting a Safe, Smart and Healthy City

AirGuard is on a mission to create safe and healthy indoor spaces that ensure the well-being of every individual.

AirGuard was founded in 2021 with the aim of helping its clients breathe easy — literally speaking. The company creates safe and healthy indoor environments by leveraging data and cutting-edge technology to monitor air quality and eliminate airborne bacteria and viruses.

Aside from launching its own Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) devices and sensors, AirGuard has developed a custom processing engine as well as visualisation tools that allow clients to tap into data-backed insights that can turbocharge their businesses. Over the past year, the company has also expanded its offerings to include consulting services and a certification scheme aimed at helping businesses navigate the increasingly important environmental, social and corporate governance landscape.

A City of Opportunities and Innovation

For a data and tech-driven startup like AirGuard, Hong Kong is both the perfect home and launching pad for ideas. Tony Leigh, Head of Investor Relations and ESG of AirGuard, stated, “As Hong Kong has been evolving into an increasingly skills-based economy, innovation and technology (I&T) has become increasingly vital to its development as a leading I&T hub in the region. In addition, with over HK$150 billion invested by the Hong Kong government since 2017 in multiple industries to create an advanced I&T ecosystem, it’s a very exciting time to be here.”

Leigh added that Hong Kong is at the cutting-edge of technological change and provides an ideal venue for proof-of-concept validation, all supported by a robust business infrastructure. The city’s plethora of networking and ideas-sharing opportunities, including events organised by InvestHK and other government bodies, are also an important driver of innovation and business success.

One-stop Solution for Air Quality Management

AirGuard is committed to providing smart solutions for IAQ optimisation. “We adopt a data-driven approach to optimise a client’s IAQ, which we do by adhering to a mantra of ‘measure, mitigate, manage,’” Leigh added. “We are focused on data as a strategic asset, and we go well beyond most other firms by not just identifying problems but by also offering workable solutions to the issues we find. So, in effect, we operate as a one-stop shop when it comes to air quality management.”

Leigh feels that the city boasts no shortage of talent. “Hong Kong should be immensely proud of its workforce. At AirGuard we have a very multicultural, multilingual team, which would be hard to replicate elsewhere in Asia,” he continued. The company currently has close to a dozen staff in its local office and has plans to expand its team further.

Indeed, despite being a relatively young company, AirGuard is already on the right track for growth. Aside from having secured contracts with several major clients in Hong Kong, the company is making active progress with expansion into Mainland China as well as Japan, Thailand and other countries in the region. The company is also working on several new projects, including a certification programme for restaurants and an initiative to ensure the air quality of schools in Hong Kong and abroad.

“Everyone who sets up a new business, regardless of how good the feasibility study may have been, goes through a learning curve, whether that relates to the product itself, the marketplace, or how circumstances may change,” Leigh said. “So it’s important to be flexible, listen to clients and prospects and, above all, have a good team of smart people.”