We are excited to announce that Promus Ventures has led the Series A round for Halter, a US- and New Zealand-based team automating farm management. We are joining Halter’s Board of Directors alongside Peter Beck, Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, who was an early investor in Halter and also invested in the current Series A round.
Founder Craig Piggott grew up on his family’s dairy farm outside Auckland, New Zealand. Like most dairy farm families, Craig arose in the wee hours of each morning to head outside to move the cows into the field. He knew first-hand the human toil and work required to run a farm and its livestock.
Craig graduated from the University of Auckland as a mechanical engineer and worked at Rocket Lab throughout university. Although Craig loved working with the incredible Rocket Lab team (Promus Ventures is privileged to be an investor in Rocket Lab), he always wanted to start his own company to solve the pain points of farming that he knew well.
Halter was founded to optimize and modernize dairy farming. Using Halter’s proprietary “cowgorithm” machine learning platform, farmers will be able to automate their farming practices by improving productivity, efficiency, animal welfare and environmental sustainability. The Halter solution will also improve the lifestyle and well-being of farmers by giving them unprecedented flexibility and fully-centralized control over their schedules and daily routine.
Halter helps farmers control, monitor and manage the most critical asset on a farm: the cow. One farmer who has pre-ordered Halter has stated, “100 hour weeks are our reality. Saving hours each day will change farming permanently.”
Halter was recently named a winner at the 2017 New Zealand Innovation Awards, and has assembled a talented and hungry team of software and mechanical engineers.
The Halter team sees the future of farming as one optimized to meet growing food demands, improve the lifestyles and well-being of farmers, minimize environmental footprint, prioritize animal health data and welfare, and track safely food production in the entire supply chain. We look forward to helping the team achieve these objectives on a global scale, and are excited to be along for the ride.
Most importantly, we pledge to milk the opportunity to insert bovine jokes everywhere possible, plowing the way to be the first moovers in this greenfield opportunity. (Thank you, here all week).
If you are a farmer interested in Halter or just curious about cowgorithms, you can sign up here for the latest Halter news.
Recipients of this post are not to construe it as investment, legal, or tax advice, and it is not intended to provide the basis for any evaluation of an investment in any fund. Prospective investors should consult with their own legal, investment, tax, accounting, and other advisors to determine the potential benefits, burdens, and risks associated with making an investment in any fund.
