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The autonomous tractor company that finalized the exit from its Livermore headquarters and research-and-development property earlier this year announced that its technology has been bought by another company after months of silence amid public speculation and scrutiny.
The company announced in a LinkedIn post earlier this month that its “core technology” had been acquired by a “large global equipment manufacturer”, first reported as Caterpillar Inc. according to anonymous sources who spoke to Bloomberg last week.
“Building and scaling a new tractor platform in agriculture came with unforeseen challenges,” Monarch officials wrote on LinkedIn. “We had to make difficult decisions, including a shift away from manufacturing to a technology licensing model which validated that the core EV & AV technology could operate across tractors, augers, utility vehicles, and construction equipment.”
The company’s decision to shift from producing automated tractors to providing a “software as a service” (SaaS) product last August preceded three lawsuits filed later in the year from dealerships who alleged that its tractors failed to operate autonomously as advertised, as well as the closure of its former home base in Livermore.
After news broke and circulated about the company’s exit from Livermore and from the realm of researching, developing and manufacturing equipment, public scrutiny increased in recent weeks following a viral video posted by a natural wine producer in El Dorado County demonstrating the tractors’ failures.
“It just does not perform,” Patrick O’Connor said in a video posted to Instagram on March 29. “It’s actually quite dangerous.”
Monarch’s LinkedIn post this month was the first time it had broken its silence on the company’s future since its transition to software development last fall, with the company’s public phone number and media email addresses no longer in operation as of last month.
“We recognize that this transition caused disruption to customers and partners, and we understand the impact it has had,” Monarch officials said. “We appreciate the customers and partners who’ve continued to support us through the transition.”
“We are deeply grateful to the early customers who took a chance on us, the investors who backed the vision, and the team who believed in a more sustainable food ecosystem and put in an extraordinary amount of work to make it real,” they continued.
Caterpillar had not yet publicly announced the acquisition as of Tuesday afternoon. The company is set for its first quarter earnings call on April 30.
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