Naturethings Marrying Ai And Greenery Urban Spaces
Nalini Veeraghanta, a fourth-generation gardener, noticed a newfound appreciation for nature and the outdoors during the Covid pandemic, when people were predominantly working from home. However, she also noticed that while most people claim to love plants, they often do not have the time or skills to care for them.
According to Veeraghanta, plants are living things and cannot be treated like furniture that can be ignored. This led her to found Naturethings in April 2021, a “nature-as-a-service” platform that offers plant care and maintenance services supported by artificial intelligence (AI). Through this platform, users can receive regular check-ups and health scans for their plants through a WhatsApp chatbot. Naturethings also offers programs to help people build daily habits around interacting with green spaces.
As the platform grew and gained over 15,000 followers, Veeraghanta saw a demand for introducing green spaces into offices as employees returned to work after Covid restrictions were lifted. This led to the evolution of Naturethings’ B2B platform, catering to the needs of commercial real estate spaces.
To build the operations and sustainability charter, Veeraghanta’s brother Pavan Veeraghanta, a construction and sustainability leader in the UAE, joined the company as COO in 2022. As Naturethings continued to expand, other members joined the founding team, including Ashwin Dhanasari as CTO in 2021 and Kenneth Lim as the head of design in 2023.
Lim, a tech professional and self-taught landscape designer and horticulturist, had been working in the tech sector for 27 years before joining Naturethings. His interest in plants and gardens was passed down through generations, just like Veeraghanta’s. Lim’s expertise in both tech and horticulture makes him a natural bridge between the two worlds.
Naturethings’ services expanded to include landscape design, and Lim’s expertise was crucial in designing gardens for over 100 houses in Singapore. His involvement in corporate projects grew, and he became a consultant for landscaping issues on an ad hoc basis. One of his notable projects was the design of a hotel’s green facade which had previously looked patchy. Lim’s solution was to add additional layers of greenery, resulting in a lush and full green facade.
Veeraghanta’s interest in plants came from her great-grandmother, who had a PhD in Botany, and her grandmothers who were urban farmers. After graduating from business school, Veeraghanta held leadership roles at multinational companies before founding Naturethings. She joined Antler as an “entrepreneur in residence” in 2020, and after several iterations, met her early ex-founder friends. In January 2020, she relocated to Singapore at the start of Covid and focused on Naturethings.
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The company’s latest venture involves creating a digital twin of office spaces for clients, allowing them to monitor their green spaces and track plant health through sensors and AI technology. Naturethings has already completed projects for a Fortune 500 corporate real estate services firm and is in talks with Lucrum Capital to manage green spaces in a hotel.
Naturethings was the Start-up winner of the Insead Business as a Force for Good Award in 2024. Veeraghanta sees the company as a pioneer in urban nature-based solutions and aims to modernize the dated and fragmented industry of biophilic design and landscaping.