After three years watching Indian fish farmers lose livelihoods to erratic water quality, Snehal Verma co-founded NatureDots to fight back with sensors and AI.

The venture's flagship product, the AquaNurch System, pairs hardware sensors with machine-learning software to monitor water conditions in real time, predict climate and pollution risks, and recommend interventions before losses mount. Fish farmers in the regions NatureDots targets lose roughly $16,000 per hectare per year to fluctuating water quality, according to Verma's field observations cited in a Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship profile.

"As a first-generation woman entrepreneur belonging to a tribal community from one of the most underdeveloped regions in India, I was one of the lucky people who had access to education, resources, and exposure to dream big and undertake the risk of building a startup," Verma told Duke I&E.

As of that profile, published during the 2022–2023 academic year, NatureDots had mapped more than 2,000 hectares and engaged with over 1,000 fish farmers, including 125 women farmers, in India's Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh states and in Washington state. The figures have likely grown since.

At Duke, Verma participated in the Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program, a year-long intensive for student founders sponsored by Melissa Bernstein '87 and Doug Bernstein. She used the Duke Innovation Co-Lab's 3D printing resources to prototype hardware and connected with Research Triangle founders through E3 Durham.

The company's team page, current as of June 12, 2026, lists 22 members and more than 20 national and international awards. Three co-founders lead the venture: Verma as CEO, Mohammad Aatish Khan (Yale, Fulbright) as COO, and Ayush Prasad (Helsinki University) as CTO, with a stated long-term goal of building a digital twin of critical freshwater ecosystems.