After nearly 20 years in university research and teaching, Gabriela founded Nitrogen Sensing Solutions (NS2) in 2019, at age 50. The idea came from HiTech, a knowledge-transfer program that helps researchers find business opportunities for their technologies. There she found a pressing need to control nitrogen compounds in recirculating aquaculture and a gap in the sensor market. An invitation from a leading aquaculture accelerator meant the company had to be incorporated quickly. Marise Almeida joined a year later and now serves full-time as COO.
NS2 develops disposable test strips read by a miniaturized handheld reader to measure nitrite, nitrate and ammonia on site, with lab-comparable accuracy and results that flow digitally to a phone, the cloud or industrial control systems. Funding of close to half a million euros came from the aquaculture accelerator, a Portuguese–Norwegian consortium under the EEA Grants Blue Growth program, the EIC's Women TechEU program and Portugal Ventures' INNOV-ID. At the time of the interview, products ranged from proof of concept to prototypes, with early pilot customers in agriculture.
Gabriela describes learning business from scratch, from minimum viable products and freedom-to-operate to accounting and investor pitching. Her hardest challenges have been building a cohesive team and raising capital. She argues Portugal's innovation culture is young and its private capital risk-averse, contrasting it with the ecosystem she saw at Hong Kong's Techathon+ 2025. Her message to women over 50 is that it is not too late to pursue their ambitions, and that visible role models are key to drawing more women into STEM.
