Cash cows
New Zealand’s economy may be in a rough patch, but startups like Halter and Tracksuit are proving the old adage that pressure breeds innovation.
Everybody loves cows. Including, it turns out, venture capitalists.
Halter, the New Zealand startup that recently hit a USD1 billion ($1.5 billion) valuation by putting smart collars on cattle and allowing farmers to herd them via their phones, would be remarkable anywhere.
But it’s particularly striking given New Zealand’s economy is in deep trouble, with unemployment above 5% and businesses in what some have bluntly described as critical freefall.
Halter, by contrast, is on a hiring spree. Its headcount sits at 200 but is looking to double that every year. The story goes that Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital was so impressed by CEO Craig Piggott’s San Francisco pitch that team members flew overnight to Auckland, invited him to breakfast and said: “We’ve just never seen anything like this.”
The Series D was oversubscribed, with three or four term sheets before Bond won out.
