Virtual fencing companies have become a key innovation in the livestock industry, helping farmers better manage their herds. For Norwegian livestock tech company Monil, the virtual fence was just the beginning of what the tech can do for farmers.
Founded in 2022, Monil created solar-powered livestock wearables called Cattle Collars that are designed to track cows whereabouts and make it easier to change boundaries through digital means as opposed to manual processes. The company has sold over 80,000 devices, including in the EU, UK, and U.S., with plans to expand the business globally, Janna Hovstad, CCO at Monil, told AgNavigator.
Over time, the agtech company developed a “holistic product to help the farmer become more efficient, save time, and optimize costs,” by adding various capabilities like a calving alert, which analyze movements to determine if a cow is giving birth, Hovstad explained. This feature will be available to farmers starting in October.
Additionally, Monil’s app will add a host of grazing features, including real-time and historical pasture data, heat maps to determine grazing intensity and the capability to divide pastures into smaller sections, the company shared in a press release. Collar-to-collar communications via Bluetooth and satellite functionality will also be available next year.
“The virtual fence is the starting point. … We’re also working a lot with app functionality to make managed grazing easier, and to make just planning how to do pasture management and grazing management in the app even simpler,” Hovstad elaborated.
How Monil is standing out in the growing virtual fencing market
Over the last several years, the virtual fencing and livestock wearable market has seen a number of entrants, some with large valuations. Most notably, New Zealand unicorn Halter hit a $2 billion valuation, raising NZD $377 million in a Series E round led by Peter Thiel’s Founder Fund, as AgNavigator reported.
Monil is differentiating itself through its hardware ease of use and making the products accessible to farmers of all sizes by having a low order requirement, Hovstad said. Currently, Monil is selling these devices directly to farmers, and the company is building a team across the Midwest to support farmers in the region, she added.
“Simplicity and flexibility is really important to us when we’re building products. So, you can trial with as few as six collars, and then it’s really simple to get started. And then after having tested with six adult animal grazing together, one can then scale from there,” Hovstad elaborated.
Additionally, Monil is backing up the quality of its product with a 10-year warranty on its devices, having previously only offered a five-year warranty. Extending the warranty is another way the company is staying competitive and showing up for farmers, Hovstad noted.
“Our overall goal is to have the product that is the best investment over time, and that can be done both by making the very best product, which we’re working on every single day, but it can also be on moving the risk from the producer over to our side,” she added.
Looking ahead, Monil is working to bring more granular insights to its platform, which can include precise insight on grazing patterns and recommendations on where they should graze, Hovstad said.
“Another thing that we’ve been increasingly focusing on is this: How to make it efficient for the farmer to plan pasture moves and move animals and also get insights of where the animals have been grazing, so that they can do this analysis and see when they should move animals and where they should move animals,” Hovstad added.
