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Caterpillar Buys Autonomous Electric Tractor Firm Monarch
Deal Follows Monarch Layoffs and Pivot to Licensing of Its Self-Driving Technology
Caterpillar Inc. has acquired self-driving electric tractor startup Monarch Tractor, according to peoplefamiliar with the matter.
Monarch, which at its peakdrew comparisons to Teslawithin the agriculture industry, ran into problems while growing the business and laid off staff in recent months. The startupsaid in aLinkedIn postlate last week that its technology had been bought by “a large global equipment manufacturer” but did not disclose the manufacturer’s name.The two people asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Caterpillar and Monarch didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Building and scaling a new tractor platform in agriculture came with unforeseen challenges. We had to make difficult decisions,” like moving from manufacturing to licensing its technology for use in settings including tractors and construction equipment, Monarch wrote on LinkedIn.Construction equipment is a keypart ofCaterpillar’s roughly $369billion business.
Monarch is the latest climate tech startup to struggle to commercialize its carbon-cutting solutions. In the past four weeks alone, green cement startup Sublime Systemslaid off two-thirds of its staff, and battery recycler Ascend Elementsfiled for bankruptcy.
While climate tech investmentsgrew slightly in 2025compared to the previous year, investors crowded into a handful of areas largely tied to the data center buildout. Investors aremore pessimisticabout green startups serving agriculture.
Statistics from BloombergNEF show that globally, venture capitalists poureda total of $1.3 billion into agriculture-focused clean tech last year, roughly one-third of such investmentin 2022. Thesector received just $141 million in equity financing in the first quarter of this year, a 50% drop compared to the rolling four-quarter average.
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Monarch raised a total of $251million before the acquisition from investors that included Astanor Ventures, At One Ventures and HH-CTBC Partnership, an affiliate fund of Foxconn, according to Pitchbook data.
Founded in 2018 by a team that included Tesla Inc. alumMark Schwager and winemakerCarlo Mondavi,Monarch was among a crop ofupstartsaiming to replacefuel-guzzling heavy machinery with electric models.The agriculture sector alone is responsible for some 10% ofU.S. greenhouse gas emissions.Other electric tractor manufacturers includeSolectrac Inc., which wasacquiredbyIdeanomics Inc. in 2021.
