Indoor air quality has become a growing concern for many amid the COVID-19 pandemic as evidence has shown that the virus can remain airborne for longer periods and farther distances than originally thought, the EPA reports.

However, Yodit Stanton and her startup company OpenSensors have been working to combat this issue with its innovative business model that’s making workspaces much safer during this time.

OpenSensors — a tech-based air monitoring platform — offers a transformative and environmentally-friendly solution for those concerned with working out of office buildings.

“Initially it just started as a fun hobby project. I was playing around with IoT as in my daughter has asthma, so I was monitoring air quality up in our neighborhood to try to see if I can correlate the particulates spikes and so forth with her asthma attacks,” Stanton told TechCrunch. “I released it as a project for my community to monitor air quality. But it became, I guess a real thing when people asked if I could manage their buildings.”

By revealing workplace conditions and patterns through tracked humidity and CO2 levels, OpenSensors helps to ensure that people are safe to return to their workspaces without the risk of contracting COVID-19.

To further support OpenSensors mission, Stanton secured $4 million in seed funding so her startup could continue to be an asset to buildings and companies navigating their way through the pandemic.

According to TechCrunch, OpenSensors’ seed round was led by Crane Venture Partners and other unnamed investors. The startup previously bootstrapped the company with support from customer revenues.

Air quality proves to be a hot button issue for companies across the board, so it was a no-brainer for VCs to back a startup like OpenSensors.

“With data insights, real-world usage and known customer references, OpenSensors has all the ingredients to become a trusted advisor and solutions provider throughout COVID-19 and the immediate recovery, as well as supporting the shift towards more flexible working that COVID-19 has accelerated,” Scott Sage, Partner at Crane Venture Partners, told TechCrunch.

Stanton and her startup have the potential to lead the charge for how we reimagine the workplace during the pandemic and set an example for other companies to follow.

“How we work and live are changing faster than we could have ever anticipated,” she said to TechCrunch. “There is a real opportunity for humanity to rethink how we use the physical world with sustainability in mind as well as making the design of workplaces better for people using them.”

For more information about OpenSensors, visit their website.

OpenSensors

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