Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund Backs AI Cow Collar Startup at $2 Billion…

Source: https://archive.is/CEwbj

Halter, a startup making artificial intelligence-powered collars for cows, is in talks to raise a new funding round that would double its valuation to more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Billionaire Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund, is set to lead the financing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The talks are ongoing and details could change. Halter’s technology is designed to create a virtual fence for cattle and enable farmers to monitor the animals’ locations and health indicators through an app. Its collars, which are solar-powered, connect to farmers’ phones to allow them to manage pastures remotely — for example, a rancher can herd their cows using vibrations and audio cues from the collars.The latest raise would value Halter at about $2 billion before accounting for the new money, one of the people said. The size of the funding hasn’t yet been determined because strong interest from investors has meant the deal is heavily oversubscribed.Halter didn’t respond to requests for comment. Founders Fund declined to comment.Halter is something of an AI-fueled outlier in the agricultural tech world, a sector that has slumped in recent years. A slew of agtech companies have declared bankruptcy, and VCs have fled the category as startups struggled to get farmers to adopt their products while managing high operational costs. The startup’s approach is part of a broader “precision agriculture” push, where farmers use technology to better manage their fields and reduce human labor needs. Many collars for cattle on the market focus on monitoring digestion, searching for any irregularities that could signal sickness or other issues, and on tracking breeding cycles. Even pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. makes cow collars.“The goal was to make pasture farming more sustainable and productive using technology,” Craig Piggott, Halter’s founder, told Bloomberg in 2024.Halter’s last funding round pulled in $100 million at a roughly $1 billion valuation in June, in a deal led by BOND. The Auckland-based company set up a Colorado office and has said it’s prioritizing expansion in the US.

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