Monarch Tractor preps for layoffs and warns employees it may ‘shut down’

Monarch Tractor, an autonomous electric tractor startup founded in 2018, has warned employees it may need to lay off over 100 staff or potentially shut down, according to a company-wide memo obtained by TechCrunch. The company, which raised at least $220 million and aimed to produce “driver optional” tractors for vineyards and fruit farms, has already been cutting jobs at its California headquarters and remote teams in India and Singapore. Despite shipping around 500 tractors, Monarch faced challenges expanding into other agricultural use cases and has recently lost its contract manufacturer, Foxconn. Additionally, at least one early customer, Idaho dealership Burks Tractor, alleged that Monarch’s autonomous technology was defective and failed to operate as promised, claims Monarch denies in court. In response to these difficulties, Monarch is attempting a strategic pivot away from hardware to focus on software services and licensing its autonomy technology as a SaaS offering, aiming to unlock new revenue streams for OEMs. However, the company’s memo cautions that the timing