Monarch Tractor, creator of the MK-V, fully electric, driver-optional smart tractor and Wingspan Ag Intelligence (WingspanAI) farm management platform, raised a major USD 133 million Series C funding.
Monarch has quickly become a strong player within the agricultural space as an off-road electric vehicles (EV) and autonomous vehicles (AV) category company. To date, the company has raised over $220 million to enable clean, efficient, and economically viable solutions as well as expanded into various agricultural markets such as vineyards, dairy, berries, orchards, and land management across 12 states and three countries. The Series C funds will support the further development of Monarch’s product offering, expansion of their operational footprint domestically and globally, while enabling the company’s path to profitability.
Farmer success at the center
Founded on the belief that food security only exists with planet sustainability and farmer profitability, Monarch has been at the forefront of the critical transition to renewably powered and more profitable farming ecosystems, which ultimately empowers farmers worldwide.
In the United States, farm profitability has steadily declined over the past decade, with the sharpest decline in industry history occurring in 2023. Given the nascent nature of technology in agriculture, the sector is ripe with untapped growth potential across automation, digital technologies and AI efficiencies.
“Driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and electrification, agriculture has arrived as the next frontier for the energy transition and sustainability movement,” said Praveen Penmetsa, CEO and co-founder of Monarch Tractor. “Agriculture is our planet’s most important and overlooked sector, and those in the industry have faced significant challenges, including farm profitability, labor shortages, worker safety, government headwinds, data availability, and scrutiny for sustainability demands. Monarch’s application of AI and introduction of a smart, electric platform will deliver robust social, economic, and environmental returns to farmers.”
Revolutionize farming machinery
In December 2022, Monarch released the world’s first fully electric, driver-optional, smart tractor, the MK-V, to combat profit challenges, address sustainability demands, and revive agriculture innovation. Since then, the deployment of more than 400 MK-V’s have helped, resulting in more than 850 tonnes of harmful CO2 emissions offset across 42,000 hours of tractor operations.
Monarch’s WingspanAI app is equipping farmers with access to on-farm data, integrating a farm management system, vehicle position tracking, crop image collection, and automated operations planning into one platform. The continual development of product solutions, including the introduction of new AI capabilities, will be the driving force in closing the industry’s profit gap.
This funding round will support the expansion of Monarch’s digital solutions and AI applications, including the development of Autodrive, Monarch’s autonomous operations feature, for new global markets and crop sectors.
