“Wearable tech for livestock” Silent Herdsman closes £3m deal led by Scottish Equity Partners

Wearable technology specialist Silent Herdsman, previously trading as Embedded Technology Solution, has raised £3m from an investor syndicate led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP), Albion Ventures and the Scottish Invesment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.

Established in 2010 as a University of Strathclyde spin-out project, Silent Herdsman is a predictive analytics software company which provides high-tech behavioural monitoring collars for livestock cattle which trigger alerts to a farmer’s mobile device when there is a change in activity.

Using remote sensor devices which can detect heat and motion in 3D, its patented collars are intended to help famers increase productivity, performance and profit by identifying key heath predictions such as oestrus detection (when cattle are at their sexual peak).

It will use the funding round to support its growth and international expansion plans in order to achieve “market penetration”.

The investment will also fuel its development of a range of animal health and welfare monitoring devices.

Silent Herdsman CEO, Annette MacDougall, commented:

“This investment underpins our unique and distinguishing product features and represents a significant endorsement towards our global expansion plans.

“We are delighted to be working with a sterling team of professional and knowledgeable investors who have supported our technology roadmap for taking on-line data services towards internationalisation and expansion.”

Stuart Paterson, partner at Scottish Equity Partners, continued: “There are currently over 1 billion beef and dairy cows world-wide and over 34 million dairy cows in the EU and US alone.

“As a result, this represents a market opportunity of over $1bn per annum to Silent Herdsman. Moreover, the solution significantly enhances the efficiency of world food production which is of global concern.”