New ZealandAgriculture and food production2016 – ongoingHalter
Smart collars for virtual fencing and herd monitoring
New Zealand's Halter put sensor collars on more than a million cattle, replacing fences and early-morning musters with app commands
Problem
Pasture-based dairy and beef farms spend many labour hours moving herds to milking sheds and between paddocks, and building and shifting fences. Spotting sick cows or cows on heat depends on staff watching the herd.
Approach
Founded in 2016 by former Rocket Lab engineer Craig Piggott, Halter makes solar-powered, GPS-enabled collars that steer cattle with sound and vibration cues, followed by a mild pulse if ignored, so farmers can set virtual paddocks and move herds from a phone app. The always-on collars collect behavioural data that the company uses to flag animals that may be sick or on heat. Farmers receive the hardware free and pay a monthly subscription per cow.
Results
Takeaway
The subscription model removed the upfront hardware cost that usually slows technology uptake on farms. Productivity gains are the company's and individual farmers' claims, and animal-welfare groups and some Australian state laws still restrict collars that deliver electric pulses.
Categories
- Industry
- Agriculture and food production
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Product and service innovationBusiness model innovation
- AI technology
- Robotics and automationPredictive analytics and ML
- Adoption
- Built in-house
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
TechCrunch reported Halter's US$220 million Series E led by Founders Fund at a US$2 billion valuation. It reports collars on more than one million cattle across more than 2,000 farms in New Zealand, Australia and the US, and the CEO's claim that customers lift land productivity by up to 20%. It notes that the collars' behavioural data is used to track health and fertility and states that no agentic AI is involved.
NZ Herald reported Halter's NZ$85 million Series C, its growth to 180 staff and the founder's statement that it added or trained 100,000 cows in 2022. It explains that farmers receive collars free and pay a monthly software fee by herd size. A Southland farmer says the system saves him more than 2.5 hours a day and has cut his nitrogen use.
ABC News reported on a Tasmanian dairy farmer who fitted collars to 1,300 cows and now schedules herd moves the night before. It reports subscriptions from A$8.50 per cow per month. It also covers the RSPCA's opposition to devices that deliver electric pulses and notes that such collars are banned or restricted in several Australian states.
Full details are in the original sources.
