Silent Herdsman, a UK-based software provider for livestock farmers formerly known as Embedded Technology Solutions, has raised £3m ($5m) after spinning out from Glasgow-based University of Strathclyde.
Venture capital firms Albion Ventures and Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and Scottish Investment Bank, the investment group of the local government’s Scottish Enterprise unit, provided the money to Silent Herdsman, which was founded in 2007, according to Companies House.
Since 2010, Silent Herdsman has provided a behaviour-monitoring collar for cows, which triggers alerts to a farmer’s mobile device to identify a change in activity, for example oestrus detection, using predictive analytics software. Its technology is patented in the UK, China, New Zealand, Mexico and Europe and was formed as an output of the ITI program owned by Scottish Enterprise totalling £5m from 2006 to 2009.
Stuart Paterson, partner at SEP, said: “There are currently over one billion beef and dairy cows world-wide and over 34m dairy cows in the EU and US alone. This number is continuing to grow as countries get wealthier and demand for dairy products increases. As a result, this represents a market opportunity of over $1bn per annum to Silent Herdsman.”
Picture source: William Warby/Wikipedia
