{"id":341413,"date":"2026-03-21T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T23:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/341413\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T23:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T23:45:08","slug":"halter-tipped-for-raise-at-3-3-billion-valuation-kiwi-fund-details-huge-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/341413\/","title":{"rendered":"Halter tipped for raise at $3.3 billion valuation, Kiwi fund details huge gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halter, now incorporated in California but with most of its R&D and management in Auckland, was founded in 2016 by ex-Rocket Lab worker Craig Piggott after his boss Sir Peter Beck gave him his blessing and financial backing<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"HalterHalter founder Craig Piggott with the solar-powered Halter collar.<\/p>\n

Other early backers included Sir Stephen Tindall\u2019s K1W1 fund and Thiel\u2019s Founders Fund, which both put money into a $7m Series A round in 2018.<\/p>\n

Beck also introduced Piggott to one of Rocket Lab\u2019s key Silicon Valley investors, Bessemer, which also put money into Halter.<\/p>\n

Piggott, the son of Waikato sharemilkers who often clocked 100-hour weeks, tested his first smart collar start-up on the small farm his parents later bought in Morrinsville.<\/p>\n

\"HalterHalter founder and CEO Craig Piggott (left) with beef specialist Phathisa Khumalo in the R&D lab at Halter’s Auckland offices. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n

His firm today employs around 350 staff and its systems manage more than 700,000 head of cattle.<\/p>\n

Halter has recently expanded into the US, where huge Texas cattle ranches are among its targets, and into Australia, where now-updated animal welfare rules in some states have previously inhibited its progress. <\/p>\n

\"CraigCraig Piggott (right) with three of his key backers (from left): David Cowan, a partner at US venture capital firm and major Rocket Lab shareholder Bessemer, mentor and investor Sir Peter Beck (also Piggott’s boss during his stint at Rocket Lab) and Bessemer partner Tess Hatch.<\/p>\n

(While Halter\u2019s collars use electric pulses as one of their cues, Piggott says they deliver a tiny fraction of the charge of an electric fence. Halter\u2019s product has been approved by the AgResearch Animal Ethics Committee, among other bodies.)<\/p>\n

Tracking to pass Fonterra within 3 years<\/p>\n

Halter does not reveal financials or the number of farmers signed up for its systems, which have recently expanded to include pasture management<\/a>. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now heavily in the mix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But its results have been sufficiently promising to gain big increases in its valuation each time it has raised new capital. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the pace they\u2019re growing, it will take Halter 11 quarters to be worth more than Fonterra,\u201d Icehouse Ventures chief executive Robbie Paul said earlier today, speaking to the Herald from the US, where he was watching the Miami Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great testament to the impact tech can have on New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

4x return<\/p>\n

Icehouse Ventures, one of Halter\u2019s earliest backers, has put progressively more money into the smart-cow firm over multiple rounds \u2013 from the $100,000 it chipped in to Halter\u2019s seed round to follow-ups of $500,000, $1m, $4m, $10m, $20m and larger investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve invested $105m to date,\u201d Paul told the Herald this morning.<\/p>\n

His firm\u2019s stake in Halter currently has a holding value of $409m. <\/p>\n

The huge gains have made Halter the fund\u2019s top-performing investment. That made it Icehouse\u2019s largest investment by a factor of three.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalter is worth as much as our next 10 largest investments combined.\u201d <\/p>\n

Icehouse\u2019s top 10 investments include its minority stakes in Crimson, Tracksuit, Dawn Aerospace, Partly, Hnry, Sharesies and OpenStar.<\/p>\n

Paul wouldn\u2019t comment on the Bloomberg report or Halter\u2019s possible private equity valuation for its next raise. <\/p>\n

Thiel, the first outside investor in Facebook and a co-founder of one of the hugely successful and controversial data-mining and \u201cspook\u201d software firm Palantir, whose shares have tripled in value over the past year as its market cap has hit US$360b, has been a New Zealand citizen since 2011.<\/p>\n

Thiel has invested in multiple local start-ups and has bought land in Queenstown<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The billionaire has been rarely sighted in New Zealand and has recently been winding down local investments<\/a>, but Founders Fund partner Scott Nolan has made annual visits to New Zealand and is well known in the local start-up and venture capital communities.<\/p>\n

Innovator of the Year<\/p>\n

Piggott, who could not be immediately reached for comment, was named<\/a> Innovator of the Year at the 2026 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year awards on Thursday.<\/p>\n

With his privately held firm now incorporated in the US, his holdings are not public. By the time of a Series D round, dilution has usually whittled a founder\u2019s stake down to between 10-20%, but it can vary by company.<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halter, now incorporated in California but with most of its R&D and management in Auckland, was founded in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51582,161072,3225,1975,8613,902,138,181,2082,19363,295,13988,182363,8482,329,194,111,139,69,5413,2515,1560,182364,23368,182365,16541],"class_list":["post-341413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-51582","tag-33b","tag-according","tag-at","tag-billion","tag-bloomberg","tag-business","tag-details","tag-for","tag-founders","tag-fund","tag-gains","tag-halter","tag-huge","tag-investing","tag-kiwi","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter","tag-raise","tag-report","tag-thiels","tag-tipped","tag-us2","tag-valuation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}