This Is Our Story

Early believers, the Williams family, joined us as cornerstone investors and provided funding for further product development.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ozone as a sterilizing agent, prompting the team to commercialize our ozone sensor technology into a product used for health and safety monitoring and process control.

We released our first product, the ozone portable monitor, to the U.S. market. Our portable monitors continue to be popular with professionals and enthusiasts and are used in a variety of indoor, outdoor and industrial applications.

Some kind folks from the government gave us a research grant and we used it to bring sensor design and fabrication in-house, making GSS technology a core competitive advantage.

We kept saying yes and growing and therefore had to move into larger facilities. Our new home was down an unassuming driveway in the leafy suburb of Mt Eden, in central Auckland – also home of Eden Park, for rugby fans – go All Blacks!

We released the AQM 60 which quickly became our flagship product. It rapidly gained popularity around the world, as it provided a cost-effective yet accurate solution to measure outdoor air pollution. At last, a real alternative to expensive analyser technology.

Co-Founders Williams and Henshaw published our first scientific paper on the application of low cost sensors for ambient air monitoring applications

On the back of the AQM station, we released our first particulate matter (PM) monitor: the AQM 10 (later to be called the Dust Sentry).

Quixote Transportation Technologies (QTT) in the U.S. introduced our AQM 60 for Road and Weather Information System (RWIS) monitoring. QTT was later acquired by Vaisala, who make awesome weather stations (but are still learning about air quality stations).

Our first major industrial network was secured with Vale the Brazilian copper giant. Several AQM 60 monitors were installed at Vale sites in Brazil.

Construction sites, quarries, mines and roadsides – we like helping our customers keep local communities safe and the Dust Sentry was perfect for the job. Keeping up with the tech-geek generation, email and SMS alert systems were a neat new feature.

As the business grew and became increasingly complex, new skills were needed. An experienced commercial team joined us in the form of Mark Templeton (CEO), Noel Davies (Chairman), and Carl Beck (sales and marketing), along with some new investors.

Proud moment! Our Dust Sentry was the world’s first nephelometer to pass MCERTS, the pioneering indicative particle monitoring standard of the UK’s Environment Agency.

With MCERTS under our belt we went certificate-crazy and got ISO-9001-2008 as well. Like most things we picked it up quickly and quality management is now a major part of our culture – CARs, SCARs, OFIs, ECOs, we love that stuff!

The U.S. EPA featured us in their 2014 Air Sensor Guidebook, where our Series 500 portable monitor was highlighted among a handful of manufacturers. We got a mention for our ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide sensors.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) selected us for Focus700, a group of 700 high-growth potential New Zealand companies that receive a higher level of support from the government in their export markets. This began a close working relationship with NZTE that continues to this day.

What do you call an air monitoring station that’s way better than the AQM 60? The AQM 65 of course! Our taste for obscure naming conventions continues. We made significant improvements to sensor performance, extended the operating temperature and lowered the detection limit for SO₂ and H₂S.

Our air monitoring software, Aeroqual Cloud became standard on all units sold.

When there’s some strange air pollution in your neighbourhood… Who you gonna call? NYC Department of Environmental Protection kit out a van with an AQM 65 and drive it round town to put polluters in their place.

Breaking into the China market was hard work. We finally know we’ve cracked it when the Beijing EPA purchase three AQM 65 air monitoring stations for a research project.

Further success in China with a 90-unit PM_2.5 monitoring network for Shaoxing Prefecture in Zhejiang Province.

Bursting at the seams with a growing team and wanting to expand production capacity, we said farewell to beautiful Mount Eden and moved to new bespoke facilities at Rosebank Road in Auckland.

We added the particulate matter sensor to the portable line-up. It measures both PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, is lightweight and affordable = happy customers.

Meet the AQY, the latest product to emerge from R&D, who managed to keep it secret for almost two years. Small in size, big in performance, the AQY sold strongly from day one.

As the business grew in the U.S. Aeroqual Inc was established. We needed hands on the ground to support our business growth, with that we had Drew Dinataman (Business Development Manager) & Bernadette Shahin (Senior Applications Manager) join Aeroqual as our first U.S. based employees.

Aeroqual was gaining momentum across the U.S. construction and remediation markets, winning several major projects across both the east and west coast.

TRC Companies Inc (Construction), SCS Engineers (Remediation) and Long Island Rail Road (Construction) are just some of the customers that we worked with on their projects.

Aeroqual features in the TIN 100 Absolute IT Supreme Scale-up Awards for 2019, as announced at the Technology Investment Network Awards in Auckland.

COVID-19 tested our production capabilities, but we were up to the challenge. Through good stock availability, a robust supply chain, dependable distribution, and remote technical support we delivered the same exemplary level of service our customers expect.

Aeroqual played an important part in managing the spread of COVID-19, providing ozone monitors to aid in safe and efficient ozone sterilization.

 

Business growth took a brief pause during COVID, but now we’re firmly back on track. We grew our core business and secured some big wins, such as the Raydant International in Asia project.