Monil founder Torstein Nesse.
Image credit: Monil
News of Halter’s $220 million Series E earlier this year—a round that valued the New Zealand livestock technology company at roughly $2 billion—sent an all-too-familiar ripple through the agtech world. Investors voiced excitement, practitioners advised caution, and everyone debated whether virtual fencing is “the new barbed wire” or another overhyped sector.
The reality, as with most things in ranching, is more nuanced. Away from investor pitch decks and conference booths, a growing number of American ranchers are deploying virtual fencing collars to change the way they manage herd movement and land. While it’s not yet a widespread phenomenon, a growing majority uses the same analogy over and over:
“Just as barbed wire revolutionized the management of agricultural ecosystems around the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, virtual fencing offers similar transformational potential,” says Drew Bennett, a professor at University of Wyoming.
