Hustle Awards 2025 Special: Vox Aeris, Winner of Early-Stage Innovation

0:00Welcome back to The Serial Entrepreneur, I'm your host Anna Wood. On today's episode, I'm joined by Celine Sari, the founder and CEO of Vox Ares. We discuss the challenges of being a solo female founder building a hardware product, how solid information is more valuable than advice, and what it was like to win the Early Stage Innovation Award at the Hustle Awards 2025. Let's dig in. Hi, Celine. Welcome to the podcast. How are you? Good. Thank you, Anna. How are you? I'm really good, thank you. So to begin every single podcast episode, we ask the same icebreaker question, which is, what's your favourite breakfast cereal and why?

0:44I actually thought about this question and I couldn't remember the last time I ate cereal. So I'm not big on cereal, because I'm also Turkish and we're big on breakfast. So we'd have an elaborate breakfast with everything you can imagine, like from eggs to like all sorts of things but yeah not probably not a not a cereal person honestly I think I'd prefer like a Turkish breakfast over cereal as well yeah yeah me too so would you be able to introduce yourself and tell me about your background Yeah, of course. So I'm born and raised in Turkey, in Ankara, and I studied at UCLA in the US. My bachelor's in aerospace engineering.

1:36From there, I continued working there for a few years after graduation. I worked as an automotive aerodynamicist, so I was working at an EV startup to work on the external aero of our designs. And after that, I came to the UK basically to do a double master's degree that's offered between Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art called Innovation Design Engineering. So I completed that and my basically graduation project there became the foundation of the company. Great. So yeah, moving on is what is Vox Ares and what are you trying to achieve? Yeah, so Vox Ares is a company that develops advanced air filtration solutions where traditional systems fall short.

2:29The current product, so basically the first product that we're working on, is a system that utilizes a technique called acoustic agglomeration, which basically means that we're using sound as a way to agglomerate particulate matter before it reaches the filters, so we can actually increase the size of the particulates leading to the filters, because capturing fine particles is one thing, capturing the rest of the size spectrum is another thing. Capturing fine particles can be quite challenging. And what we enable with the system we're designing is the capture of much finer particles that would otherwise be quite difficult to achieve using low-grade filters, which unfortunately most buildings are equipped with.

3:16So it's basically a retrofit that allows the building to upgrade their filtration grade without necessarily undergoing the downsides of an actual physical filter change and a physical filter upgrade. Great. So what use cases would the product be used for? So where would it be? Yeah, so right now we're envisioning this as a commercial HVAC retrofit. But the system itself, the internal, basically the engine that we're developing has very broad use cases. ranging from different applications where air filtration might be necessary. As an example, we were a part of the most recent cohort of TRIG, so Transport Research Innovation Grants, given by the Department for Transport in the UK, delivered by Connected Places Catapult.

4:09As part of that, we developed a project where we looked into the feasibility of using the system as a standalone unit to combat the particulate matter problem in the London Underground. So it's a specific microenvironment where the particulate matter levels are quite elevated compared to the outdoors. And it presents specific challenges because of the airflow physics that are very specific to that underground setting. And it was an extreme environment and we basically looked into it saying, can we produce this and make this as a standalone system? Because right now the retrofit angle, we don't filter the air through that.

4:49we basically precondition it so you still have the filter systems as you would in your system, we don't interfere with the system. But in this application we looked at the feasibility of a completely standalone system that also filters the air and it proved to be feasible as well. So there are quite a few application areas and that's why I like to frame it as basically we design these specific solutions for situations where traditional systems fall short. So that's why there can be many use cases but the first one like I said is the HVAC retrofit for commercial systems. Amazing so kind of what was behind the product what was the inspiration behind the founding of the company?

5:30Yeah I get this question a lot and I thought about that process quite a bit and everyone everybody wants that you know like polished answer of you know oh I found I came across this and I found this. It didn't happen that way at all. It was very gradual. It was through a, basically that graduation project that I had to develop for my, for my master's. And basically I was trying to, because I love my job. Like I love being an aerodynamicist and I love kind of looking into ways like specific areas where I can use it, where aerodynamics is not necessarily the first concern or very overlooked. And HVAC and air filtration kind of stood out as one of these areas.

6:18And the reason why I started looking into that is because I think randomly came across the story of Ella Kissy Debra, who was the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as the cause of death in her death certificate. And her story and what her mom had to go through to have this recognized and to show that air pollution had this severe impact on her child is just, it's a very inspiring story. And I just thought to myself, you know, we have the tools to make air quality better. Air filtration systems are very advanced. We have the technology. There are hundreds of different systems and media-based filter designs as well that deliver different levels of air filtration but somehow there is a disconnect where the majority of people most of us in the places where we spend the most of our lives don't have access to these technologies and that's because the most advanced the best filtration out there typically comes with an energy penalty and that's why it's typically confined to these very specialist environments where it's absolutely required and that's also because of the awareness issue as well, where we're slowly starting to realize how big of an impact air quality has on our lives.

7:40So that's why after seeing her story, I thought to myself, can I use my background and this new innovation design engineering aspect where we're looking to more using these specialist skills and translating those into different sectors to find solutions? I thought to myself, maybe I can come up with a better way to make it possible to have high grade filtration in most places rather than in you know just labs or operating theaters so that's that's basically where the inspiration came from so that was a really long way to explain that but I like the the way it started so it's it's important to me yeah no it wasn't too long it was great that story it is so important to kind of bring awareness to that story the fact that she was the first person to ever have it on her death certificate and it is becoming increasingly an issue so I think what you're doing is really important I think so too so kind of doing what you're doing do you have any competitors in the market of course of course um so there are quite a few big HVAC and air filtration companies out there and they do produce a very advanced technology and the types of filters that they're producing that allow high grade filtration.

9:00So when I say high grade, I'm basically referring to HEPA grade or higher MIRV grade, minimum efficiency reporting value type of grading filters. And they have developed different basically shapes, different materials, different implementation methods that allow these technologies to exist and they absolutely have their cases of implementation but there is still quite a quite a gap between regulation and the incentive to use these technologies out there and because that incentive and that awareness is now slowly forming we're noticing this gap that we have in that in those types of technologies where we don't necessarily have a widely available high grade filter system available and that's happening because there wasn't necessarily too much of a demand in that aspect and we kind of think that it's quite physically impossible to do that because of the way like in filtration it's been mostly ingrained in our minds that you know it's media-based filters you have high grade filters low-grade filters you can basically create a setup of multi-stage filters that's kind of the um the opportunities that the technical opportunities and the creativity that we are that we're handle and basically that kind of player is best at what they do at developing these filters developing these custom solutions developing these more advanced uh scenarios like labs or operating theaters in hospitals but there is now appearing this gap like i said of a high grade filtration system that allows operation at not an exaggerated energy level and that's where we come in and that's where we see the gap in the market where there's not necessarily any solution that can provide this without generating certain byproducts so like ionizers and stuff like that amazing so Vox Ares won early stage innovation award at the hustle awards this year so congratulations on that thank you how did that make you feel and what does that mean to you and the company yeah that basically when I was at the awards ceremony I am I usually don't like to like assume anything or you know even have any hopes of winning anything ever so I was just like sitting there, happy to be there, trying to learn a bit more about all the other companies that you were presenting.

11:32And I was like looking down and I heard Vox Ares and like the applause and that was like a really nice moment for me. And it's particularly meaningful because I got to know some of the other companies that were in the same category as well, like AnyFeast or Female Advisory Council, and they're amazing companies. So I think just to be on that short list, is an achievement on its own. Winning it was of course the highlight for me for a long time, and it will be. But at the same time, I try to not let these types of wins stand in the way of the progress that I'm trying to make. So I'm trying to stay very grounded, just still keep my head down and develop the product.

12:23But these types of highlights are, I think, much needed it because we're doing something that's very challenging uh there are very dark days sometimes where like something doesn't work and there's like uh it's it's it can like break everything and those types of highlights kind of make you feel like okay you know um at least there are these ups and it kind of makes it feel like you know like it's it's it's worth what i'm doing and uh that kind of recognition and the feedback that i got from other people there as well in terms of what I'm developing for air quality. I got a lot of nice responses for that.

12:58So it was also really nice to know that people care about air quality and are excited to see a hardware solution that's tackling pollution directly. This being exciting to people was also a highlight for me. So I'm really grateful for the opportunity. It was very well deserved. All of our judges always say the competition is tough. being shortlisted is already impressive and then to win is another win in itself so you were saying how kind of winning the award get gave you the opportunity to kind of like see through some of the darker days you have so what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that you've had on the founder journey so far yeah I mean I think particularly as a solo founder I probably have a like double those dark days and when i say dark days it's basically there are two facets you have the business asset and then because i'm developing a hardware solution there's the hardware aspect as well and when you're developing that prototype of course i'm developing like nearly a hundred variations of a particular setup for instance and of course some of them don't work at all some of them work some of them need iterations and when you're like when you're in a day where like you're working on the iteration that didn't work it can be very demoralizing but at the same time like basically you have to say that you know I know this path I know that because of my experience as well I know that iteration is the way to go so I keep iterating but you kind of have to you know tell yourself that this is a part of the process and you just have to power through it And then when I remember a particular day where I was like stuck on a particular aspect of a prototype and then I tested a new iteration that worked almost perfectly.

14:52And at that point it was like, OK, now, you know, that's the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, those dark days where like that that previous iteration was not working is now working. so you kind of have to keep going knowing that that like at least banking on that day will come and you can do that based on basically if it's a physical like prototype you can do that based on your experience and just you know the iterations and things you need to you need to fix um in terms of business um so of course um i made the decision to raise money at a later tRL stage uh and that was the decision I made very on the very early days of the company and I'm still continuing that although I'm getting close to very quite close to the TRL stage where I'm going to start raising money so that's why I basically used like all of these competitions grants that are available to startups like mine especially tech startups by the government or through private sources and in a lot of these cases these grants and these competitions is basically like a patchwork and it's very competitive to get those it takes a long time to apply to those things it takes a long time to manage those things but in the same time i have a bit of a complaint some of these like early stage grants type stuff they sometimes assume that you have to have cash flow and in the very early days like in the first like months of creating the company obviously i didn't have any type of cash flow.

16:24So a grant that expects me to pre-spend the money so that I can get reimbursed was a very challenging, at least financially challenging point to be, where I had to step in personally. And so those types of things where the funding buddies also should understand the reality of very early stage tech, especially hardware startups, and maybe fine-tune their grants based on that. But apart from that, I've also had many grants where that understanding was perfectly understood across both parties, like for instance, TRIP, and it helped the company develop a lot faster. So it's basically a double-edged sword where it gives you the freedom, it gives me the freedom to go and raise money at a much later stage where I have better terms, but at the same time it also means that i have to now fund this process uh which is very difficult to get a hardware device as a solo founder into a uh tRL stage of like six seven uh but yeah that's uh that's the that's the i know that the battle that i chose and i think i'm progressing uh quite rapidly towards that goal but yeah that's uh that's basically a long way to say uh that yeah there are dark days of course uh I signed up for this uh but at least you know you have to keep telling yourself that uh the good days are going to come as well exactly and that leads on well to my next question is what have been the highlights since founding the company yeah uh so um every time I think about the highlights uh it's always the technical highlights for me and that's because the technology that I'm trying to develop is particularly a complex technology and it's a hardware technology.

18:12So it's not like it's I'm not only fighting for the demand for a product, for a new product, you know, for any product. I'm also fighting against, you know, creating this technology that doesn't exist before. So the highlights were always when I achieve a significant milestone in terms of a performance metric that i was trying to get to um and i like i those are like ingrained to my head right now so like i can i can remember the exact setting and like the exact like even like the stuff that were on the table uh item by item like what was happening in those seconds is like ingrained in my brain because i was running the tests and like one of these times and i saw the metrics that i wanted to achieve and i just i just couldn't believe it and then i i ran that particular test I think 102 times after that because I couldn't believe that it was true and I wanted to be exactly like exactly sure but the first moment that I saw that metric and that I saw that the iteration that I took the new version that I tested was actually working that was like oh my god like I can't believe I made this happen after you know like all of these other iterations and that's a major highlight and especially as an engineer like that's also like a technical milestone for me uh so that's always nice of course the other highlights are you know when i um win awards like such as the uh award that startups magazine uh kindly awarded me uh and some other awards that i got in the past uh those are of course highlights that basically in those like days where you're like you're working so much and you know nobody else is noticing like it's like in your own small startup world but when these highlights happen it really kind of makes you feel like okay it's it's worth it what I'm doing and at least I get to enjoy these shorter moments but it makes it totally worth it.

20:11Yeah I think it's interesting that you say how like actually building the tech is a huge highlight and seeing those like different iterations get better and seeing with your own eyes that and I think it's it's quite exciting because you are still quite early stage that you're still excited about what you're doing I think that it really comes across yeah yeah I try it's a it's a hardware company right so it has to it has to perform impeccably definitely so what would you say as a solo founder what have been the lessons that you've learned on the journey so far yeah so many lessons but I can say that first of all business side of things make sure that you have good legal help like it can be reading NDAs it can be reading contracts that you're presented to I was very clueless in the first days and And as I got more legal help, I also now kind of can look into these things and have a much better understanding.

21:18But I cannot recommend more, you know, getting proper legal help in every step, especially if it's IP heavy like mine. Like we're filing more patents now. In every step of the way, I think it's worth the money. It's quite expensive, unfortunately, to get legal help. But there are some programs out there that help some companies pro bono, especially climate tech and these sort of hardware companies. But even then, I highly recommend getting corporate legal help, at least to build an understanding of what you need to look out for. The other one is basically, I think, so I know that I'm an outlier.

22:01I'm a female founder in hardware. where I'm resisting raising money until a later TRL stage. I've been able to do that because I was getting these grants.

22:15And it's a very male dominated world, the HVAC world or that mechanical engineering

22:26related sectors in general. So I'm kind of, I know that I'm a bit of an outlier in that sense um but basically um it's a really sorry it's a really long uh long way of saying this um but basically i know the challenges i took on like i'm a solo founder i'm a female founder in a heavily male dominated field i'm developing hardware everybody wants a software company but i i want to have an impact on the physical aspect of air quality i'm developing hardware and i'm doing this without raising money first. So I'm taking the hardest possible route to develop this product, but I'm doing this for reasons that I studied very deeply and I'm very convinced that this is the route that's right for me.

23:17And the reason I'm saying that is because I've gotten into many programs, I've gotten the opportunity to speak to many mentors and advisors as well, And everybody, there is quite a bit of like solidified advice out there that a lot of people just generically give. Some of that advice is, I think, quite fine tuned for software companies that is not necessarily always applicable to hardware companies. So I would say to any founder starting a hardware company, take it always with a grain of salt and always try to maybe speak to specialists who have experience in hardware rather than, you know, generalist startup advice.

23:59And secondly, there are also other, you know, solidified advice, like, for instance, you have to get a co-founder. You have to raise money right now, like at the beginning. these kinds of advices of course it it would make it really easy if I raise money at the beginning but there's a reason why I didn't do that and the reason there's a reason why I didn't rush to get a co-founder I'm not against getting a co-founder at all but I'm also particular very particular in the way that I work and I it needs to be the right co-founder that will make it easier not just getting a co-founder for the sake of getting a co-founder because people give me that advice there are quite a few solo entrepreneurs out there that built meaningful impactful companies so it's not impossible at all it is more rare it is more difficult but I know that you know if the advice is just generic advice I know that I have my reasons and I'm taking the best path that is tailored for my company and like raising money as well is there are a lot of companies around me that are that are just you know going into raising there's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all but I wanted to build it on my own terms first when when Voxers was first founded I was designing this like portable purifier for home use but because of the flexibility I had I was able to explore an option that's outside of home use which is what channeled me into this commercial HVAC retrofit direction so I was able to do that on my own terms and I think that also gives me engineering creativity as well at the beginning to find the best appropriate beachhead market and the best niche market for the first products first application and pilots so i think that's very important um to build that on my own terms but now now i'm getting to a point with these higher tier level where i can show you know these lab tests where i can show demand where i can show a product that where the next stages are so crystal clear compared to what i would be in a position like what if i were to raise on day one or you know six months and uh it's in a very different position now and that's the position i wanted to be in when i'm raising um money next so that's a conscious decision that i made but of course um you know it's it's a these are trade offs right like you you pick whichever route you want to design and tailor for your company and basically the advice is um of course take advice from other people who build stuff take advice from advisors and these you know programs that offer these things but always take it for a grain of salt and be very deliberate about every step that you're taking and be very sure that you have your reasons for you know if you want to raise money first why are you doing that and what are the trade-offs what are you giving up to be able to do that versus doing it later um yeah so that would be uh my biggest advice and the last one is basically talk to people like i'm a i'm a huge introvert i'm extremely introverted um and it's uh the the part that i don't like the most is having to talk to people uh that i don't know but i just i just force myself to do it because there's no other way you can actually understand what you need to build.

27:32I think I got a bit better at it but still don't enjoy it. But basically every time I had a call either with a technical person or somebody who's in a position let's say to approve purchase orders or somebody who's in a position to be a champion for the product. Every time I spoke to someone I left with a piece of information that was so valuable that it could change the direction of the product especially in the early days and I was just thinking to myself wow like if I hadn't spoken to that person I maybe would have taken the wrong step or maybe it would have taken me weeks um to you know come to that conclusion that I could easily uh learn from this person so every time I spoke to someone I told myself this is so worth it I know I hate doing this uh like reaching out to like you know complete strangers um but every time it paid off so well uh so i cannot recommend enough talking to people about you know technology fundraising business side all of these aspects you will for sure walk away with information uh that's very useful for you uh but of course like the first advice as well um you know take it always with a grain of salt and make sure it's not suitable only for software companies.

28:52Yeah that's quite interesting the kind of like the information that someone can provide you is more valuable than any kind of advice because obviously some people as you said you're talking to people who aren't technical but they're purchasing and things like that they know way more about that that you wouldn't and it probably isn't even given as advice they're like oh yeah it works like this but then all of a sudden there's like puzzle pieces like joining in your mind you're like that makes so much sense exactly exactly so is there one lesson or piece of advice you wish you would have known before starting the company I think I'm I'm basically trying to pick because uh there's there's so many things that I would have told my earlier self to do or not to do but yeah I think just you have to talk to people it's just because I'm seeing the impact that it had on my product and it's just you can't just be in your echo chamber and like read stuff and you know have a small team and even like create an echo chamber of a small small team it's the same thing like you have to talk to external people and make sure that there is demand for exactly what you want to build before you build anything um that's that's that's what my mentors have told me as well along the way and uh what um i found out to be true as well to make exactly sure that you're solving a problem that already exists that is a pain point for people and you know just talk to them uh not about your product but about their problem so that you make sure that you're kind of on the right track to provide a solution that's actually useful rather than just, you know, building something and hoping that, you know, it finds someone who can use it.

30:42Yeah. So what do you think the future holds for Vox Aeros and yourself? Do you have any big plans coming up that you can talk about? Yeah, I have many big plans. Some I can't talk about yet. I'll be happy to share them along the way with you. some IP stuff which is very exciting for the technical part. Some potential pilots as well which is very crucial to advance the TRL stage. So mostly these technical milestones that I'm trying to achieve so that I can start raising money in as soon as maybe six months. But we're going to see how it goes. uh yeah so i really want to um like envision voxeris as um basically a solution provider like i said in situations where traditional systems fall short uh and this is the beginning of that and this is the point that is the most crucial to solve in my opinion is providing better air quality in indoor spaces where these systems either don't exist or it's very hard to just improve and replace these systems so yeah that's that's about it yeah it's very exciting times for Vox Ares from the first time I spoke to you back I think it was end of 2024 I was really excited about how what you were talking to me about because I I came away from that conversation thinking like wow this is actually going to impact real people and i just i just think what your building is really cool thank you so much yeah yeah uh that's the that's that's the goal like i i was just thinking like if i if the product that i am able to put out there even improves the air um that one person breathes that's a that's a plus for me that that would make me feel at least before a founder like as an engineer that would make me feel like that i'm fulfilling the engineer's role in society where I'm designing something that materialized and has a positive impact on people's health and even just achieving that for one person would be a dream for me achieving that on at scale that's the goal and that would be make me the happiest person on earth amazing so that comes to the end of the podcast but my final question is is there anything else you wanted to add or plug at the end of the episode yes please measure whoever's listening please measure your indoor air quality it's so overlooked whenever I talk to people whether it's like you know in your own house or you know universities or like public locations when I talk to them about measuring air quality and some of them obviously most of them are saying you know they don't measure it at all some of them would say oh of course we measure air quality and then you dig deeper into it and they're just measuring CO2.

33:44That's not a holistic view at all. Make sure to measure the air quality. I brought my device here to measure the air quality in this room that I didn't run an air purifier. I'm not running an air purifier and it's pretty bad. It's pretty high over DWHO standards, actually more than double for PM 2.5. So you never know. You can't detect these things on your own and we have to protect ourselves it's it's completely invisible in most cases so i highly suggest please let's raise this awareness and start uh looking into other pollutants as well not just co2 but particulate matter as well and others uh when we're looking into a holistic understanding of air quality indoors but that is an amazing kind of last thing to end on thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Celine.

34:36And once again, congratulations on winning early stage innovation at the Hustle Awards. Thank you. Thank you. It was an honour. Thank you so much for the spotlight. And I hope to see more companies dealing with these types of issues. Me too. Have a lovely rest of your day. Bye. If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out Startup Magazine socials to stay up to date on the latest startups news.