Halter raises $220 million to scale virtual cattle fencing

New Zealand-based agricultural technology startup Halter closed a $220 million Series E—a late-stage funding round—last month, valuing the company at $2 billion. The round was led by Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel. Halter plans to use the capital to scale its virtual fencing technology, which uses GPS, audio, and vibration cues to manage livestock grazing without physical barriers.

The system relies on solar-powered collars worn by livestock. Craig Piggott, Halter’s 30-year-old founder and CEO, spent nine years developing the technology. The financial and operational metrics of the company’s expansion include:

• Funding: The latest round brings Halter’s total capital raised to roughly $400 million.
• Adoption: The company’s collars are on more than one million cattle across more than 2,000 farms.
• Geographic footprint: Halter operates in New Zealand, Australia, and 22 U.S. states.
• Productivity: The system can lift the productivity of land by as much as 20%.

The collars also collect behavioral data to track animal health, including a feature that flags when individual animals may be sick. This has allowed Halter to accumulate what is likely the world’s largest dataset of cattle behavior. Piggott, who previously worked at Rocket Lab, emphasized the importance of land management for pasture-based farms, where livestock graze on pasture. “If you manage a pasture-based farm, whether it’s dairy or beef, the most important variable is how you manage the productivity of your land. Fences are the lever — they control where animals graze and how you rest the land. Being able to do that virtually just made a lot of sense,” Piggott said.

Halter faces competition from both established players and new entrants. Merck owns a competing virtual fencing system called Vence, while Grazemate is a startup focused on herding cattle via autonomous drones. Piggott remains committed to the collar design, arguing that while drones may play a small part in the future, he does not believe they are the right form factor for the core fencing element of virtual fencing, and that collars will likely remain the correct form factor for a long period. With less than 10% penetration in its home market of New Zealand, Halter is prioritizing expansion across the United States, South America, and Europe, aiming to capture a larger share of the one billion cattle in the world.

Why it matters

Halter’s $220 million Series E funding highlights investor interest in agricultural technology that improves land productivity through virtual fencing, positioning the company as an outlier in a sector that has otherwise slumped.