Craig Piggott grew up on a dairy farm in the Waikato district, the main agricultural region of New Zealand. He went on to study Mechanical Engineering at the University of Auckland, before joining Rocket Lab as an early engineer. These two worlds converged in 2016 with the founding of Halter.

Halter is a virtual fencing and pasture management platform that serves as an “operating system” for beef ranches and dairy farms. Their breakthrough platform combines hardware—a lightweight, solar-powered collar and transmission tower—and software—an easy-to-use mobile app—to manage, monitor, and optimize the care of land and animals. 

We are thrilled to announce our participation in Halter’s Series D and join Craig and the Halter team on their mission to make ranching and farming more productive, profitable, and sustainable. 

Growing labor, land, and regulatory pressures

Today, ranchers and farmers around the world face a few common challenges, from labor shortages to land management and ecological pressures. 

Labor is scarce

Ranching was once an intergenerational business, but the 24/7 demands of ranching and grueling manual labor have led younger generations to pursue different paths. As a result, many ranchers struggle to navigate generational transitions and find and retain ranchhands amidst serious labor shortages. ‍‍

Pasture management is costly and time-consuming

Rotational grazing is critical for the vitality of any pasture-based ranch or farm. It determines the health of the animals and how well a pasture regrows each season. Traditionally, this requires spending hours every day wiring up and maintaining costly, physical fencing around an entire ranch and herding cattle to fresh patches of grass, or to and from the milking shed. Land is a rancher’s most valuable asset, and grass left ungrazed is lost productivity.

Regulatory and climate pressures are growing

Ranchers and farmers have long faced a difficult tradeoff between meeting environmental expectations and staying profitable. Pressures like fencing off waterways, avoiding overgrazing, and reducing feed waste often come without practical, affordable solutions. Whether in the Kansas prairies or forested mountains of California, ranchers and farmers are facing increasing economic and ecological strain. 

Few understand the pressures facing the industry better than Craig. He witnessed his parents put in 100+ hour weeks, working tirelessly to care for their herd and preserve their land on a farm in New Zealand. With his engineering background, Craig saw an opportunity to ease that burden through modern technology.

Halter: A new era of pasture farming

Halter is quietly revolutionizing pasture management with its integrated hardware and software solution. Physical fencing is replaced with software-drawn lines, herds move to new pastures with just a click of a button in the Halter app, and ranchers can precisely monitor every pasture and cow through a digital replica of their ranch.

At first glance, a Halter collar appears simple: A lightweight band with a solar panel on top, and discreet speakers and vibration sensors on the sides. But its true sophistication lies beneath the surface: On-device algorithms process thousands of motion points each minute, plus ML trained to understand each unique cow, affectionately known as the “Cowgorithm™.” This allows Halter to tailor its cues to each animal and pick up on subtle behavioral and physical nuances that might otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. The system protects animal welfare by using sound and vibration to guide animals. Most cows learn the gentle cue system in just two days. 

Since Craig’s first prototype with Big Bird the dairy cow, Halter has grown into a full-stack platform that can guide cows around the farm, identify lameness and heat (fertility) cycles before they are visible, and even forecast pasture growth. Farmers can draw new grazing areas directly on their phones, prompting entire herds to move with no need for quads, herd dogs, or trucks. Farmers and ranchers now have real-time information at their fingertips, helping them better understand herd behavior, monitor animal location, and make more informed management decisions.

Proof in the paddocks

When we spoke with customers, they shared about the impact of Halter and the freedom it granted them—many even said they couldn’t imagine ranching or farming without Halter. A US rancher told us that Halter’s technology frees him to eat dinner with his family and go to his kids’ football games. Instead of riding an ATV through the dusk and dawn, he can plan out and schedule his herd’s pasture movements on the app before going to bed. He can see his kids off to school in the morning, knowing that the cows were shifted at 4:00 am. A solo rancher in Kansas has been able to reduce veterinary costs and add 35 pounds to every calf through better grazing practices. In New Zealand, a beef farmer who dreaded fencing steep hills can now simply draw virtual boundaries across them, reclaiming pasture to support additional cattle. For a New Zealand dairy farm, Halter enables cows to walk at their own pace instead of being pushed to the shed, reducing lameness by 50%.¹ Customers use Halter for over 70 minutes a day, every day, and save over 20 hours per week as a result.¹ These stories reveal Halter’s true impact beyond the balance sheet. 

Customers such as these are Halter’s most powerful sales engine. Trust in agriculture is local and experiential, and Halter taps directly into that network effect. Each new collar does more than monitor a cow. When a customer sees Halter in their neighbor’s paddocks, it often recruits another evangelist, making the flywheel spin even faster. We’ve seen this pattern repeat from New Zealand to the US, as early adopters see drastic changes in their farming and lifestyle practices. 

During a recent visit to a cattle ranch in Yorkville, CA we watched Halter at work alongside the ranch owner-operator, a few neighboring ranchers, and local fire-department members and volunteers. With two lightweight solar towers in place—a setup that took one person only 90 minutes—the rancher opened up Halter’s app to show us how he draws fresh grazing blocks to shift his herd.

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According to the rancher, the collar’s gentle audio and vibration cues were intuitive enough that even first-time cows followed without hesitation, giving us a sense of how fast Halter can be deployed. The on-ranch discussion allowed us to hear insights from the experts that no amount of due diligence would have surfaced and highlighted benefits that go beyond time savings. The rancher shared that Halter’s quick effectiveness is a testament to the collar’s one-of-a-kind GPS accuracy, which removes any “gray zones,” ensuring cows learn the consistent cues and stay where they are supposed to. Halter’s dynamic nature “unlocks a whole new opportunity and way of thinking about the pasture” that would be impossible with physical fencing. Its precision geofencing also provides access to hillside terrain and odd-shaped forage areas—land that would never justify the cost of permanent fencing—thereby meaningfully expanding carrying capacity. The fire volunteers were especially vocal about rotational grazing as a practical tool for reducing fuel loads in Northern California’s fire-prone grasslands. But nothing underscored Halter’s impact more than the steady chewing and gentle swish of the cows’ tails, an unmistakable signal that the herd felt calm and content. 

Closing the innovation gap in farming

Though agriculture laid the groundwork for civilization, its rate of innovation has remained stubbornly slow. Halter is helping to change that, bringing long-overdue transformation to the field. By combining precision, automation, and care, Halter enhances farm productivity, sustainability, and profitability, while also improving the quality of ranchers’ lives. The stories we hear from customers speak volumes, and we couldn’t be more excited to support Craig and the next chapter of Halter’s journey.