Our Story

We're gardeners who got
tired of killing plants

Gnome started with five co-founders, a shared graveyard of dead succulents, and a belief that technology should make gardening effortless — not more complicated.

Helping every garden thrive

We believe that healthy gardens shouldn't require expertise. Whether you're maintaining a backyard vegetable plot or a rooftop container garden, you deserve the same level of care and intelligence as a professional horticulturist — without the years of training.

Gnome was built on a simple insight: plants communicate constantly. Soil moisture levels, temperature shifts, nutrient deficiencies — it's all there in the data. We just built the tools to listen, translate, and act.

Our mission is to make gardening radically simple for everyone: from the first-time plant parent to the seasoned grower. We stay quietly in the background, surfacing exactly the right information at exactly the right moment.

We're based in Seattle and backed by gardeners, growers, and climate-focused investors who believe healthy gardens make healthier communities.

Every garden deserves a Gnome looking out for it.
Eshwar Umarengan Co-Founder & CEO, Gnome
🌿 Plant-first in everything we build
💡 Radically simple user experience
🌏 Sustainability at every layer
🔒 Privacy by design, always

How we built it,
learned, and grew

Early 2024

The idea takes root

Five co-founders with a shared history of killing houseplants started experimenting with off-the-shelf soil sensors and a Raspberry Pi. The first prototype was ugly — but it saved a tomato plant from root rot, and that changed everything.

Mid 2024

Building the AI core

We assembled a dataset of plant care signals from research papers, grower logs, and our own sensors. After months of training and iteration, our first model could predict watering needs with 91% accuracy across 40 species. We knew we were onto something.

Late 2024

Team and hardware take shape

Maya joined as Head of Hardware, bringing deep experience in low-power IoT design. Tom came on board to lead product design. Our first custom sensor PCB passed initial testing and we began the journey toward a manufacturable consumer product.

Early 2025

iOS beta and first real gardens

We shipped the Gnome iOS app to 80 beta testers across Seattle and Portland. Real gardens, real feedback. Watering accuracy improved to 96%, plant identification launched, and our knowledge base grew to 340+ species. The NPS was 72 — we were floored.

Now — 2026

Final sensor QA and public launch prep

Sensor hardware v1 is in final quality assurance. Android app development is underway. We're preparing for a public launch with sensor kits, subscription plans, and a community platform. The waitlist is growing every day.

Small team, big ambitions

We're a tight-knit group of engineers, designers, and gardeners who care deeply about what we're building.

EU

Eshwar Umarengan

Co-Founder & CEO

Leads the vision and strategy behind Gnome. Passionate about building technology that quietly improves everyday life, starting with the garden.

HA

Hanshal Anguluri

Co-Founder & CFO

Oversees financial strategy and operations. Believes sustainable businesses are built on honest numbers and long-term thinking, not short-term metrics.

AK

Arnav Khare

Co-Founder & Co-CTO

Leads backend systems and AI infrastructure. Obsessed with building software that is fast, reliable, and disappears into the background of everyday life.

NG

Nikhil George

Co-Founder & Co-CTO

Leads product engineering and mobile development. Believes the best technology feels invisible — you just notice your plants are healthier.

RH

Rudy Heredia-Jantz

Co-Founder & Chief of Hardware Operations

Drives hardware and embedded systems engineering. Turns complex sensor data into actionable insights that help every garden thrive.

Principles that guide us

These aren't slogans on a wall. They're the decisions we make every day when we're designing, building, and shipping.

🌿

Plants first

Every feature, every alert, every design decision starts with one question: does this make the plant healthier? If it doesn't, we don't ship it.

💡

Radical simplicity

The best garden app is the one you actually use. We remove friction obsessively. Complexity is our enemy — if something feels hard, we redesign it until it doesn't.

🌏

Sustainability matters

We design our sensors to last, reduce water waste, and avoid unnecessary packaging. Smarter gardens should mean greener gardens.

🔒

Privacy by design

Your garden data is yours. We collect only what's needed to help your plants thrive — and we never sell it, share it, or use it to profile you.

💬

Honest communication

We tell you what we know, what we're guessing, and what we don't know yet. We'd rather share uncertainty than false confidence.

🚀

Ship and learn

We move fast, put things in real gardens, and improve from real feedback. A working sensor in the ground beats a perfect one on a whiteboard.

Want to come along for the ride?

We're building in public and love hearing from gardeners, growers, and curious people. Join the waitlist to follow our journey and get early access when we launch.