It Started in Madagascar
In 2018, a scientific expedition led by Sven Buerki in Madagascar brought together researchers and engineers to study rainforest ecosystems and support restoration efforts.
Working in the field revealed a fundamental limitation: accurate species identification was not accessible where decisions needed to be made.
Identifying plants required either transporting laboratory equipment into remote environments or sending samples to distant labs, introducing delays of days or weeks.
As a result, critical decisions from restoration to species management were often made without reliable data.
This gap between observation and identification became the starting point for what would later become DecodeNAture.
7
Years
300+
Species Identified
From research to deployment
What began as a field research initiative evolved into a broader realization: the limitation was not specific to one project or ecosystem: it was systemic.
Across agriculture, biosecurity, and environmental monitoring, biological decisions depend on data that is often too slow to obtain.
DecodeNAture was created to move DNA identification out of the laboratory and into real-world operational contexts.
Meet the Team
Where biology meets engineering in the field
