Latest / Best of Business / Craig Piggott: Halter founder and CEO on the company raising $165 million in funding

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Craig Piggott: Halter founder and CEO on the company raising $165 million in funding · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
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  Speaker 2: If you haven't heard of the company Halter, remember that
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  Speaker 2: name because this could be our next key, big key
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  Speaker 2: we invention that's going to go bank gangbusters. The company
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  Speaker 2: just raised one hundred and sixty five million dollars in
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  Speaker 2: a funding round. Halter is now valued at a billion
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  Speaker 2: US dollars, so that's one point sixty five billion New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand dollars. They managed to secure backing from tech investment
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  Speaker 2: company Bond, which also back the likes of Airbnb, Facebook,
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  Speaker 2: and Spotify. And Craig Pigot is the founder and CEO
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  Speaker 2: of Halter and with us.
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  Speaker 3: Now, Hey Craig, good evening, Thanks having me, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming in. Now, just explain to me what
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  Speaker 2: you guys do is you put a little like thing
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  Speaker 2: around the neck of the cow and basically create an
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  Speaker 2: electronic fence where a fence doesn't exist yet.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're a system for a pasty based farm. So
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  Speaker 3: I think dariul b farmers on grouse with a collar
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  Speaker 3: for a cow, an app on a farmer's phone, and
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  Speaker 3: that collar transcales to response to Q, so we can
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  Speaker 3: fence and shift them house farmers run and more productive
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  Speaker 3: and sustainable farm.
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  Speaker 2: Does this farmer not have to go out of mustard?
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  Speaker 2: Then they could just basically shift them with the collars.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, they can do it all through through halter.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but how does the cow know which direction to
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  Speaker 2: go in?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so the cow listens to the collar. It has
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  Speaker 3: like primary queues, which is sound vibration, and so the
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  Speaker 3: cow kind of learns to respond to the sound of
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  Speaker 3: the collar instead of visually seeing the fences that exist today.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, can you so it will know where the fence
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  Speaker 2: is right, so it will know I can't go there
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  Speaker 2: because the fence is there. Yes, but when you want
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  Speaker 2: to shift them, so you've created a little electronic paddock,
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  Speaker 2: Now you want to shift them to another electronic paddock.
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  Speaker 2: Can you get them to move down the hill?
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  Speaker 3: It's actually like the same way we tell a cow
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  Speaker 3: or guide a cow if they interact with a fence.
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  Speaker 3: So if they come into a fence and we give
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  Speaker 3: them feedback on left and right, and it's the same
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  Speaker 3: way if we're we're shifting a cow. And that's also
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  Speaker 3: where we use a vibration vibration queue to help reinforce
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  Speaker 3: the right way and which way they should be walking.
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  Speaker 2: So so so if they're walking in the right direction, they
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  Speaker 2: will know because if they're walking in the wrong direction,
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  Speaker 2: the collar will tell them.
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  Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So why is this taking off? Because it's I mean,
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  Speaker 2: obviously it's going to make the job a hell of
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  Speaker 2: a lot easier, isn't it. And you're not going to
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  Speaker 2: have that infrastructure costs of fencing.
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  Speaker 3: I think the farming is I think just such a
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  Speaker 3: critical role to a like New Zealand's economy, but also
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  Speaker 3: around the world. And so when you can build a
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  Speaker 3: product which helps farmers like at the heart of what
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  Speaker 3: they do, which is trying to lift the productivity of
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  Speaker 3: their land, then you know, those are important jobs focused
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  Speaker 3: on for farmers. And so like my background and I
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  Speaker 3: grew up farming, and I think that's why we you know,
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  Speaker 3: that was kind of our I guess initial idea was
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  Speaker 3: like we need to focus on productivity and kind of
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  Speaker 3: the key parts of how you run a farm, and
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  Speaker 3: and that's what the products become today.
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  Speaker 2: So does this make does this free up time?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yep, it does. It automates a bunch of you
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  Speaker 3: don't have to put up fence as a shift cow,
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  Speaker 3: so you save time on that. But then it also
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  Speaker 3: enables you to be slightly more precise, so you can
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  Speaker 3: therefore lift the productivity of your pasture in your land.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have set up costs? Because I haven't read
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  Speaker 2: the article, it seems that you have some sort of
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  Speaker 2: like you have some sort of transmission that you require, right,
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  Speaker 2: so is that quite a big investment?
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  Speaker 3: It's actually it used to be once upon a time,
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  Speaker 3: but these days we do put towers up on farms,
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  Speaker 3: but they come in a cardboard box. Farmers clip them
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  Speaker 3: together like really lego. And I think the record to
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  Speaker 3: put up a tower is like twenty minutes or fifteen
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  Speaker 3: minutes or something.
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  Speaker 2: Stop it. And how much are they worth?
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  Speaker 3: The towers they come as part of like and we
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  Speaker 3: do like we map the farm and we give the
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  Speaker 3: farmer maybe three or four towers, and so they pay
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  Speaker 3: one off kind of installation fee depends on the size
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  Speaker 3: of the farm and where they are. And thinks of that.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you have got currently in your fences quarter
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  Speaker 2: of a million cows. How many cows they're in the world.
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  Speaker 3: We crossed the two hundred and fifty thousand cow milestone
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  Speaker 3: I think towards the end of last year and obviously
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  Speaker 3: been growing kind of since then, and the world there's
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  Speaker 3: about three hundred and fifty million, so plush, best cows,
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  Speaker 3: no end.
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  Speaker 2: Of expansionary opportunities here for you.
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  Speaker 3: Agriculture is obviously like a massive industry, and so yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we have a long way to go. We feel like
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  Speaker 3: we are just getting started on the on the journey
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  Speaker 3: and on them and we're excited if we take the
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  Speaker 3: impact we're seeing on our customers today and just how
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  Speaker 3: they are lifting their productivity and sustainability and saving time
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  Speaker 3: and it's better for the farmers and the land and
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  Speaker 3: the cows, and trying to scale that through new markets
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  Speaker 3: and things of that. We are excited to keep kind
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  Speaker 3: of pushing that credit.
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  Speaker 2: What do you think you are? You're the next what?
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  Speaker 2: That's a big question.
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  Speaker 3: I think we these like heaps of so many cool
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  Speaker 3: companies I think out there having a huge, huge impact.
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  Speaker 3: And so obviously I spent some time in rock Lab
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  Speaker 3: and really at my Opeda Beck and he's been instrumental
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  Speaker 3: and helping to build Holter and just I couldn't be
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  Speaker 3: more grateful to Pete. But I think for us, we
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  Speaker 3: just focused on farmers and agg and that industry.
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  Speaker 2: And where where was the farm that you grew up on?
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in Moronswell, well actually all around the
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  Speaker 3: South work I do, but Moronsville was. It's where my
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  Speaker 3: parents are today, and it's whether everything kind of started.
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  Speaker 2: Have the parents got this on the farm.
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  Speaker 3: They were the first customer for sure?
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  Speaker 2: How old are you, Cray?
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  Speaker 3: I am thirty one.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I see heapes behind Jasinda Morrin's in college.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't. There was no overlap with with Jacinda.
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  Speaker 2: But well maybe if you, you know what, you could
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  Speaker 2: be the most famous Moronsville guy if you keep going
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  Speaker 2: at this. Craig, thank you very much for coming in.
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  Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time. Mate. That's Craig Pigot, founder
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  Speaker 2: and CEO of Halter Remember the name.
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