Bay Area autonomous farming equipment startup Monarch Tractor has more than doubled its total funding with a Series C megaround.
The Livermore startup landed $133 million in a round led by Luxembourg-based impact investor Astanor Ventures and HH-CTBC Partnership LP, a fund associated with Taiwan's Foxconn.
Other investors in the new round include At One Ventures, as well as two Belgium-based funds, PMV and the Welvaartsfonds.
The Series C round brings Monarch's total funding to more than $220 million, the company said in a statement on Monday.
“This fundraise is going to allow us to really give confidence to our dealers that we are here for the long term, and that, you know, we are here to support our products, and that they should also join the movement in getting these tractors out to farmers," CEO Praveen Penmetsa told TechCrunch.
Founded in 2017, the company is developing fully electric autonomous tractors for farming and has done a lot of its early testing at vineyards in Napa.
The company began selling its first commercial tractor, Founder Series MK-V, in 2022 with Constellation Brands as its first customer.
California state regulators denied Monarch's request that same year to allow fully driverless operations throughout the state, though, and required a safety driver to remain on board for the time being, except for a narrow exemption for testing given to Monarch.
Monarch was previously approved for driverless testing at Wente Vineyards in Livermore and Crocker & Starr in St. Helena.
"Although the technology has the potential to increase worker safety in the agricultural sector, further study and review of this technology is needed," a Cal/OSHA report from 2022 stated.
Monarch has deployed around 400 tractors, the company said in a statement.
The company is gearing up to produce more vehicles, boost customer support and expand sales, TechCrunch reported, but Monarch also recently laid off around 15% of its workforce which was as high as 300 people before the cuts.
“Vineyards produce high-value crops, which means they’re willing to try out new technologies,” Penmetsa told Bay Area Inno in a 2022 interview. “They have the cash flow to invest into new tech, so a lot of the automation technologies that you see in other fruits and vegetables have sometimes originated in the vineyard space and then transitioned to other crops.”
