Monarch Tractor’s property have been acquired by development large Caterpillar, after struggling to pivot to a software program companies enterprise, in keeping with filings with america Patent and Trademark Workplace.
The acquisition, first reported by Bloomberg, caps a number of powerful years for Monarch because it went by a number of rounds of layoffs, was sued by three totally different sellers, and misplaced a significant contract manufacturing accomplice in Foxconn. It additionally comes only a few weeks after co-founder and wine scion Carlo Mondavi said he was “pushed out” after disagreeing with CEO Praveen Penmetsa’s software-forward strategy.
Mondavi couldn’t be instantly reached for remark. Penmetsa declined to remark past an announcement Monarch issued last week, which stated its know-how had been acquired by an unspecified “massive world tools producer.” Caterpillar didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Monarch raised greater than $200 million over the past eight years. It was based in 2018 by Mondavi, Penmetsa, and former Tesla govt Mark Schwager. The objective was to construct “driver non-compulsory” electrical tractors that have been additionally able to autonomously navigating wineries, fruit farms, and dairy farms.
Whereas Monarch initially got down to construct the small tractors at its personal facility in Livermore, California, it will definitely turned one in all 4 corporations that partnered up with Taiwanese electronics large Foxconn to occupy a former Normal Motors manufacturing unit in Lordstown, Ohio.
Foxconn deliberate to construct automobiles for EV startups Fisker, Lordstown Motors, and IndiEV, in addition to the tractors for Monarch. However Foxconn solely ever made a number of electrical vehicles for Lordstown Motors (which it purchased the manufacturing unit from) earlier than that firm went bankrupt. Fisker and IndiEV additionally went bankrupt earlier than Foxconn might ever make these corporations’ future automobiles on the manufacturing unit. Foxconn did make a number of hundred Monarch tractors on the manufacturing unit, however the electronics large offered the plant in August 2025 to SoftBank, leaving Monarch with no producer.
By that time, Monarch was already struggling. It laid off employees in early 2024 earlier than closing a $133 million funding spherical. Just some months later it laid off much more workers and stated it was restructuring to give attention to software program and licensing its autonomous tech.
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Sellers who bought Monarch tractors have claimed the corporate’s autonomous tech by no means labored effectively within the first place. One supplier who sued Monarch in September 2025 stated the tractors have been “faulty” and “unable to function autonomously.” (Monarch denied the claims in a court docket submitting.) Two different sellers have since filed related federal lawsuits towards Monarch. In a single case, a former protection lawyer for Monarch wrote in a January filing that Monarch entered into an assignment for the benefit of creditors — an alternative choice to Chapter 7 chapter.
Mondavi spoke up about his departure final month in a comment on an Instagram post from a farmer who complained about Monarch’s tractors. The wine-maker wrote he “left over a yr in the past resulting from elementary variations in strategy” after seeing “reliability points” with Monarch’s tractors on his farm, and on associates’ farms.
“I wished to handle them by {hardware} modifications, whereas the CEO believed they may very well be solved extra by software program. I believed strongly in a unique path however was in the end blocked and pushed out alongside one other co-founder,” he wrote.
The corporate auctioned off most of its remaining tractors earlier this yr.
