What is the inception story of Monarch Tractor and how did you choose the name of the company?
We built our first electric tractor in 2013 and conducted testing on it in India until 2016. As it became clear that the global farming sector needed a shift in order to become more profitable and sustainable, we felt it was time to bring a disruption into this space. Thanks to advancements in autonomous technology and AI, in 2019, we finally set the cornerstone of Monarch Tractor with the aim to empower small fruits and vegetables farmers to build a more efficient business. Since we are a mission-driven company, we wanted to show our concern towards the environment by taking our name from the Monarch Butterfly, which is now an endangered species due to the agri chemicals that affect its ecosystem.
Sustainability and profitability are, indeed, the two dominant facets the agricultural sector is trying to solve - how does an autonomous, electric tractor aid in this quest?
Less than 42% of the U.S. farmers run a profitable business since they are stuck between meeting emission and chemical regulations and doing so with a limited workforce. Our all-electric tractor not only reduces CO2 emissions but offers a driver-optional solution that allows farmers to run up to eight tractors at a time.
Farmers often move equipment from one farm to another on public roads so it was important to offer them the option to operate the tractor as they would a traditional one. The difference is that they can choose when to automate the mission and when to step into the vehicle and drive it themselves.
With the tractor doing multiple operations on the farm, we are able to gather meaningful data across the entire growing season. Thanks to these precision farming capabilities, fertilizers and pesticides are spent in a much more responsible and cost-effective way.
You mentioned that your goal was to empower small fruits and vegetables farmers. How affordable is your product and how easy it is to teach farmers to use it?
With subsidies and incentives, the Californian farmers that use our products have a return-on-investment period of around seven months, which is very rapid. Moreover, all the autonomous operations can be performed with just a couple of hours of training and minimal data input. Since we made the technology as graphical and user-intuitive as possible, our product is now easier to drive than a traditional tractor. Limiting operational changes by helping farmers leverage their existent labor skills is a safe way to ensure that the disruption we are trying to bring is not putting food security at risk.
You are starting production at the Foxconn Ohio facility, partnering with the world's largest electronics manufacturer. What does this collaboration entail for your international expansion plans?
Given that we want to sell our Monarch tractors at a global scale, partnering up with a powerful manufacturer allows us to ramp up the production much faster. Besides cameras and GPS devices, Foxconn also invests in EVs, thus making them an ideal partner for low-cost international production and delivery solutions. Currently, we are focused on fulfilling the demand that comes from the North American market, but we aim to expand our footprint towards Europe and the Asia Pacific region. We recently established our headquarters in Singapore, which is not only an excellent regional managing hub, but also a generous data science talent pool. India garners great potential thanks to its leading position on the worldwide tractor market, but we also started a trial deployment in New Zealand and we received investment opportunities from Japan.
How do you plan on maintaining your competitive edge in a market dominated by well-established big players?
Five years ago, the majority of these big competitors were not seeing value in electric tractors and it was only after we created this breach into the market that they got interested in electrification and autonomous solutions. They are only focused on large expensive machinery fit for thousand acres commodity crops, while we intend to address the family farms that make up for about 80% of the entire food supply of the world. Moreover, we have the upper hand on the software architecture that we provide and the fact that our technology is now being licensed to global ag equipment leaders shows the depth of our value proposition.
What is your key mission for the next couple of years for Monarch Tractor?
In order to change our food ecosystem, we have to transform the most commonly used farming tool: the tractor. We believe that all future tractors will be electric, smart and driver-optional, thus making farming more profitable and attracting relevant human resources back into the agricultural space. Our mission is to change the way we perceive these machineries by equipping them with all the latest and greatest technologies.
