A farm worker operates a tractor at sunrise near Coachella, California, on July 3, 2024. Mario Tama/Getty Images
Autonomous electric tractor startup Monarch announced this week that it has raised $133 million in Series C funding.
Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa told TechCrunch that the round, led by agrifood tech impact firm Astanor and Foxconn-affiliated fund HH-CTBC Partnership, will help them continue developing their electric tractor drone.
The company has raised about $220 million to date, almost half of its current $500 million valuation.
It is understood that Monarch previously received $61 million in Series B financing in 2021.
Penmetsa explained that the gap between funding rounds is partly due to PitchBook’s data recording a much weaker overall investment cadence in the agtech space, making the second half of 2023 a “challenging period” for Monarch.
Monarch’s Mission to Develop Tractor Drones
Monarch is incorporating autonomous driving technology into electric tractors, and currently has about 400 of these technologies in use in the field by its customers, according to Penmetsa.
The Robotics Report adds that the technology also includes aspects of artificial intelligence (AI
The Series C funding will help the company “build more tractors” and provide sales and service support to customers, expanding its footprint in the United States.
However, expansion also means job cuts, with the company revealing it has laid off “less than” 15% of its staff in order to restructure the remaining staff, particularly to cover its growing after-sales and customer service departments.
Penmetsa also acknowledged that the company has been facing headwinds in diversifying and expanding its customer base from dedicated farmland use of tractors to airports and other non-agricultural applications.