New Zealand dairy farm management start-up raises $23m

Existing investors DCVC, Promus Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, and Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, also took part. They provided the company’s NZ$8 million Series A in 2018 alongside Founders Fund, K1W1, and Ice Angels.

Halter’s solar-powered, GPS-enabled collars allow farmers to remotely shift, virtually fence, and monitor their cow’s health, feed and behavior. The goal is to reduce on-farm time and labor requirements whilst increasing output, animal welfare, and sustainability standards.

The technology is based on sound and vibration, which are used to guide cows to and from the shed or between paddocks. Sound cues indicate to a cow when it is approaching a virtual fence, becoming louder if the cow moves beyond a boundary. Should these cues get ignored, a short pulse is introduced. No farmer or third party controls the strength or frequency of these cues.

Halter claims that cows can navigate around a farm using the collar after no more than five days of training.

Farmers can track herd movement on a high-resolution drone map. The app allows 24/7 monitoring and detects subtle changes in behavior to determine animal health status. Farmers can receive alerts when a cow is in heat, lame, or calving, often before it displays any visible signs.

Established in 2016, Halter initially deployed its technology on farms in Waikato and is now in the process of expanding into other regions. A TVNZ report, referenced on Halter’s LinkedIn account, said that a new dairy farm is signing up to the system every week. Founder Craig Piggott added that the Series B would be used to make 100 additional hires, more than doubling the company’s headcount.

Blackbird closed its fourth flagship fund at A$500 million ($364 million) in August 2020, taking its total assets under management to A$1.2 billion. The vehicle makes investments in Australia and New Zealand. A month later, the firm launched a NZ$60 million New Zealand-dedicated fund with a cornerstone investment of NZ$21.5 million from the government.

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• Topics
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• TMT
• Blackbird Ventures