Supported by $27 million in Series B funding, Austin-based agtech company Breedr is helping ranchers record, track, and sell their livestock in an effort to make the entire animal protein industry more efficient, with the upside of driving down consumer prices, James Wright, head of growth and marketing at Breedr, told AgNavigator.
Breedr measures “the rich color of an animal’s life” by providing a platform to track cattle weight, genetic history, medical records and other attributes, while also providing a marketplace for farmers to sell their cattle, Wright said. Breedr provides the software through a web and mobile app and is “hardware agnostic,” allowing farmers to use their own equipment, he added.
Breedr has over two million cattle on its platform and has facilitated close to $500 million of livestock purchases so far this year, with the agtech company incurring a fee on each transaction.
“We help farmers digitize those paper records that they all collect. Those farmers and ranchers have all got a little notebook in their top pocket, and it’s about putting that into an app. That’s not the only thing we do. We help farmers trade using that data, making sure the animals marketed at the point of maximum value for them, and that data moves down the supply chain. So, often, data is lost. It doesn’t move between the ranches, and so we’re basically making data recording really easy,” Wright elaborated.
On Aug. 26, the agtech company announced the closure of its Series B round, raising $27 million in a round led by Partech with participation from Latitude and Outsiders Fund. The capital will reinforce its global rollout, including in Australia and New Zealand, while expanding its team to support those markets.
In 2022, Breedr moved its headquarters from the UK to Austin, Texas, to expand its technology in North America.
Can tech efficiencies be enough to drive down beef prices?
Breedr’s Series B closure comes amid ongoing concerns on the U.S. beef supplies, stemming from a record-small herd size that is driving up consumer prices. The average price for a pound of ground beef is $6.885 and increased 9.16% over the last year, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data from Aug. 12.
The Trump administration revealed a plan to lift tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of beef ahead of the 2026 U.S. midterm election, aimed at lowering consumer prices. The move was swiftly criticized by ranching and farming groups, including the American Farm Bureau, with its President Zippy Duvall, saying in a press release that the plan will “discourage American farmers and ranchers from making long-term investments in herd rebuilding.”
While rebuilding the U.S. herd will take time, technology, like Breedr’s, can help ranchers finish cattle quicker, leading to sustainability benefits and restoring beef supplies over time, Wright explained.
“The U.S. herd is at its lowest level since the 1950s, and we’ve got to increase that supply, and it takes a long time for these animals to grow. Breedr is all about helping the farmers be more productive and profitable, and that means finishing animals quicker because you’re making the best decisions and using the best genetics. And we’ve got to help the American consumer access the beef they want to, and in the best way to do that is to help the farmer and the rancher,” Wright elaborated.
