Read 6 reflections from Icehouse Ventures CEO Robbie Paul, following Halter announcing their $165M Series D raise. 

Halter raises $165M in Series D round

I’m delighted to share that Halter has raised $165 million on a $1.65 billion valuation. This milestone is a testament to Founder and CEO Craig Pigott’s vision and leadership, years of hard work by the Halter team, and the value that Halter is delivering to dairy and beef farmers around the world. Learn more about Halter’s technology here.

By our count, Halter joins only Rocket Lab and Lanzatech as New Zealand-founded companies that have achieved a US$1b valuation while remaining privately held. (Nuro, Supabase, Wayve, Allbirds, Fresha, and Airwallex are other offshore-Kiwi-founded unicorns.)

After launching on their first commercial farm in late 2020, Halter has scaled to >1,000 farms across New Zealand, Australia, and the USA. In 2024, they were named New Zealand’s fastest-growing company by the Deloitte Fast 50 Index.

This Series D round makes Halter Icehouse Ventures’ largest and most valuable investment. Over several rounds, we have invested nearly $80M. Our Seed Fund’s investment in Halter’s first round has appreciated by 200x in value. (Learn about and support our latest Seed Fund here.)

Below are a few candid reflections and lessons from our journey with Halter over the last nine years.

Before that, a couple of quick facts:

• Halter was co-founded in 2016 by Craig Piggott (when he was 22!) alongside Max Olson. Max subsequently founded the electric foiling boat company, Vessev.
• Prior to Halter, Craig worked for Sir Peter Beck at Rocket Lab, making this a classic example of talent breeding talent.
• Icehouse Ventures invested alongside Sir Peter Beck and Sir Stephen Tindall in Halter’s first capital raise in 2016.
• Halter has subsequently raised rounds led by Promus, DCVC, Blackbird, Icehouse Ventures Growth Fund I, and Bessemer.
• Several Icehouse Ventures funds have invested in Halter including Seed Fund I, First Cut Fund II (a fund that backs founders 30 and under), Showcase Fund IV and Showcase Fund X, Growth Fund I, and Growth Fund II. 
• Halter now has >200 FTEs with a HQ in Auckland. See Halter’s open jobs here.

Reflections and lessons from our 9-year journey with Halter

1. We did not “know”.
   Let’s not rewrite history. Yes, there were many reasons to be bullish. Craig was bright, ambitious, and was solving a problem he had experienced growing up on a dairy farm. It was the first startup that we had seen that could generate $1b+ revenue within the borders of New Zealand. The timing felt right. But there were plenty of market-, technology-, funding-, and execution-based risks.
   
   And we are not always right. Of the 22 other companies we funded in 2016, eight have unfortunately failed. Many of them had equally attractive qualities and potential.
   
   
2. Don’t second-guess first-time founders.
   We fronted up to plenty of skepticism about our investment in such a young and inexperienced entrepreneur. We also agreed with many rational arguments in favour of second-time founders: they have built teams, raised money, released products, overcome problems, scaled offshore, and more.
   
   But it appears experience is not the only determinant of success. Sir Peter Beck was a first-time founder. So too were Jamie Beaton (Crimson), Fady Mishriki (PowerbyProxi), Brooke Roberts (Sharesies), Levi Fawcett (Partly), Ratu Mataira (OpenStar), Brianne West (Ethique), and many more.
   
   
3. Shit happens. How companies respond is what matters.
   We made a sizeable follow-on investment in Halter in 2021. Around the same time, we followed on significantly into another portfolio company. Like Halter, this company had developed industry-leading technology over many years of R&D, and was just starting to ramp commercial deployments.
   
   And then, bam. Both companies were hit with existential challenges.
   
   (The details of which can be saved for Craig’s bio. And yes, Craig, I am happy to be your biographer.) Halter’s navigation of this challenge - from communicating with the Board, customers, and other stakeholders to making rapid and bold changes to every part of the business - was first class. Relative to others, Craig’s approach was much more gruelling for him and the team. But they came out stronger as a result and have never looked back.
   
   
4. There are big markets and then there are big markets.
   As either a founder or an investor, it is easy to convince yourself that a market is big enough. (And in a few cases, a relatively small market can still enable founders and investors to generate a lot of value.) But don’t underestimate the tailwinds that can come with a truly immense market.
   
   Halter is a great example. The revenue potential of their current serviceable addressable market (just grazing dairy and beef farms and just NZ, Aus, and USA) is comically large. I hesitate to write it for fear of being portrayed as delusional or sensational. But it is certainly bigger than Fonterra’s 2024 revenue.
   
   A benefit is that Halter has been able to attract significantly more capital than its peers, that are going after large-but-not-truly-massive markets. This has enabled them to build faster, take bigger risks, attract more talent, and expand their technology’s ambitions and possibilities. (The  result is they have attracted more capital, and on and on it goes.)
   
   
5. Ignore the macro challenges.
   

   There is a tendency to sensationalise challenges that New Zealand startups may face. There is not enough capital in New Zealand, the talent pool is limited, we don’t have true scale-up expertise, and our startups face the tyranny of distance. The list goes on. The IPO market is dormant, venture capital has dried up, Covid, supply chains, Trump, geopolitical turmoil, tariffs, etc.

   And yet, here we are. Despite all of the above AND New Zealand dairy farmers fronting up to the lowest dairy prices and the highest capital costs in years, Halter has grown into a billion-dollar behemoth that is enabling New Zealand’s largest exporter to simultaneously create more value and generate less impact.
   
   

6. The journey is the reward.
   “When are they going to ‘exit’?” “There’s a difference between paper gains and real profits.” I have heard plenty of remarks of this nature about Halter and others like Crimson, Dawn Aerospace, Sharesies, Tracksuit, and more.
   

   Two points:

   1. This is rarely talked about, but the reality is that when companies are growing quickly, there are plenty of opportunities for teams and investors to realise value from their shares. (We have politely declined approaches by two international firms seeking shares in Halter this round.)
   2. More importantly, (2) great founders like Craig do not think about destinations. They are on a mission to build something truly meaningful. They observe many of their peers and heroes and can see that a maniacal focus on creating value can result in creating returns (and the opposite is not always true). Their opportunities and ambitions are ever-expanding.
   
   The most heartening part of their expanding ambitions: the desire to empower the next generation. Just as Sir Peter Beck gave Craig a shot, Craig will share his experiences and resources with other bright and ambitious (and young and inexperienced) future leaders. New Zealand’s future will be brighter as a result.