Breedr raises $27 million to expand its livestock platform

Breedr, a livestock technology company founded by Australian rancher Ian Wheal, has raised $27 million in a Series B funding round led by Partech’s impact arm. The company will use the capital to expand its digital cattle-management platform across the United States, Australia and New Zealand, as producers face smaller herds, higher costs and growing pressure to improve efficiency, according to AgFunderNews.

Breedr was founded in the United Kingdom in 2018 and is now based in Texas. Its platform creates a digital record for every animal, tracking information such as weight, health, genetics and breeding throughout the animal’s life.

The company says the system is designed to replace paper-based livestock records and provide producers with more detailed information when making decisions about animal management and sales.

“Ranchers are being asked to produce more from a shrinking herd, and most of that herd is still managed on paper,” Breedr founder Ian Wheal told AgFunderNews.

“Producers can rear an animal for years with very little hard information about how it is performing and what they might get for it.”

Wheal argues that the livestock industry needs to obtain greater value from each animal as herd numbers decline and production costs rise.

“The industry has to get more value from every animal, and you cannot do that on paper.”

Breedr allows ranchers to enter information through a smartphone app. The platform can also connect with wearable devices and other livestock technologies, allowing data to be incorporated into the animal’s digital record.

The objective is to create a continuous record that accompanies cattle from birth through production and eventually to market. Information about growth, genetics, health and management can then be used to assess an animal’s performance and value.

The company also operates a marketplace where cattle can be traded using the information contained in their digital records.

Wheal describes the model as a connected system rather than simply a way to digitize paperwork.

“Breedr is full circle beef. The data belongs to the farmer or rancher. The same digital record that follows an animal through its life also lets the producer trade it on our marketplace, so the whole chain from birth to sale is joined up in one place.”

According to figures cited by AgFunderNews, more than 2 million cattle are currently registered on Breedr’s platform. The company expects approximately $500 million worth of cattle to be traded through its marketplace this year and says its revenue has increased 230-fold since 2020.

The new Series B investment was led by Partech through its impact arm. Existing investors LocalGlobe, through its Latitude growth fund, and Outsiders Fund also participated in the round.

Part of the $27 million will finance Breedr’s expansion into Australia and New Zealand, while the company also plans to strengthen its teams across the United States.

The funding arrives at a challenging moment for the cattle industry. US and European herd sizes have fallen to historically low levels, while drought, production costs and other pressures are affecting the economics of beef production.

For investors, Breedr’s proposition is therefore based on both the commercial potential of livestock data and the possibility of improving production efficiency.

Partech general partner Arnaud Minvielle said the beef sector faces significant challenges in reducing its environmental footprint and argued that better livestock management could improve both profitability and emissions performance.

“Beef is one of the most complex decarbonization problems there is,” Minvielle said, according to AgFunderNews.

He added that Breedr is seeking to build a transaction layer for a major market that remains largely unmodernized, generating revenue when animals change hands.

For Wheal, the company’s commercial and environmental goals are closely connected.

“The economics and the impact of Breedr go hand in hand; helping producers raise cattle more efficiently improves profitability while reducing emissions,” he said.

The new capital gives Breedr room to scale its technology across major cattle-producing markets and expand the use of digital livestock records, predictive models and data-driven management in beef production.