April 6, 2023

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

New Zealand-based Halter’s platform is doing it all – improving the well-being of livestock, increasing sustainability and efficiency in farming, reducing labor workloads, protecting the environment, and raising productivity. 

The company’s AI-driven application, in combination with its proprietary “Cowgorithm” and precision cow collars, allows farmers to set schedules to guide herds to the milk shed, receive alerts when cows are in distress or in poor health, and create virtual fences to corral or easily move animals.

This achievement of bridging the gap between technology and real-world farming has resulted in the company completing a NZ$85 million Series C led by U.S.-based Bessemer Venture Partners and including existing investors DCVC, Blackbird, Promus Ventures, Peter Beck of Rocket Lab, and Icehouse Ventures.

As a Tier-1 venture capital firm, Bessemer has a global investment team renowned for backing transformative companies including Pinterest, LinkedIn, and RocketLab, and among them is Halter’s groundbreaking technology.

Halter CEO Craig Piggott spoke with GAI News back in 2018, explaining what sparked the founding of the company. 

“Having grown up on a dairy farm in the Waikato region – arguably the heart of dairy farming in New Zealand – I witnessed first-hand how a dairy farm operated day-to-day,” said Piggott. “Being immersed in that community of farmers also gave me an unfiltered view of the constant challenges that they faced as well. Then, after completing a mechanical engineering degree and working at Rocket Lab, I was well positioned to assess what technology would be beneficial to help farmers and the dairy sector to thrive.”  

Founded in 2016, Halter has grown over the years, building a diverse team of over 180 engineers, data scientists, farmers, designers, and business people working together to gain a more productive and sustainable future for farming. Deployed on farms across New Zealand, Halter’s cow collars are leased under a per-cow subscription model based on each farmers’ required features, enabling Halter to retain ownership of the collars and placing the company in the position of being responsible for their maintenance. 

“Halter revolutionizes livestock farms, enabling farmers to break free from the time-intensive constraints of conventional farming,” said Tess Hatch, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners. “The company’s suite of SaaS products manages everything from pasture grazing and livestock movements to animal health, ultimately reducing labor costs and increasing revenue, while at the same time decreasing farm emissions.”

Noting that Halter is a world-first system supporting farmers in combating the challenges associated with labor while also raising milk production, reducing input requirements, and monitoring cow health, Piggott stated that the capital from this Series C will accelerate the value that the company delivers to its customers. 

“Our number one priority is investing in our farmers,” said Piggott. “This money will go directly towards delivering a system that helps farmers run more productive and sustainable operations.” 

Testimonies from New Zealand’s farmers illustrate how much Halter’s platform has benefited their ability to efficiently manage their operations. 

Peter Templeton, a farmer in Southland, New Zealand, noted that Halter’s technology has saved more than two-and-a-half hours per day by getting the cows to the shed in a more streamlined manner. 

“We’re also up 10K in milk solids and have significantly reduced the amount of nitrogen we use,” said Templeon. “Plus, the farming team is happier, there’s less fatigue, we are sharper at decision-making, and we have more accurate grazing outcomes.”

“Halter has fundamentally changed the way we farm.“ 

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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