The collapse of Monarch Tractor ends with a takeover by Caterpillar

Construction giant Caterpillar has acquired the assets of Monarch Tractor, after it struggled to transition into a software services business, according to the British Daily Mail. filings with United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Acquisition first I mentioned By Bloomberg It capped a difficult few years for Monarch as it went through multiple rounds of layoffs, was sued by three different dealers, and lost a key contract manufacturing partner in Foxconn. It also comes just a few weeks after co-founder and wine scion Carlo Mondavi He said He was “fired” after disagreeing with CEO Pravin Penmetsa’s approach to software development.

Mondavi could not immediately be reached for comment. Benmetsa declined to comment after Monarch’s statement Released last weekwhich said its technology had been acquired by an unspecified “large global equipment manufacturer.” Caterpillar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Monarch has raised more than $200 million over the past eight years. It was founded in 2018 by Mondavi, Benmetsa and former Tesla CEO Mark Schwager. The goal was to build “driver optional” electric tractors that were also capable of autonomously navigating wineries, fruit farms and dairy farms.

While Monarch initially set out to build small tractors at its own facility in Livermore, California, it eventually became one of four companies to partner with Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn to occupy the former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Foxconn planned to build vehicles for electric vehicle startups Fisker, Lordstown Motors and IndiEV, as well as tractors for Monarch. But Foxconn only made a few electric trucks for Lordstown Motors (from which it bought the plant) before that company went bankrupt. Fisker and IndiEV also went bankrupt before Foxconn could manufacture those companies’ future vehicles at the plant. Foxconn has built a few hundred Monarch tractors at the plant, but the electronics giant It sold the plant in August 2025 to SoftBankleaving Monarch without a factory.

By that point, Monarch was already struggling. He – she Layoffs in early 2024 Before closing a $133 million financing round. Just a After a few months It has laid off more employees and said it is restructuring to focus on software and licensing its own independent technology.

Dealers who bought Monarch tractors claimed that the company’s autonomous technology didn’t work well in the first place. One trader who He filed a lawsuit against the monarch In September 2025, it said the tractors were “defective” and “unable to operate independently.” (Monarch denied the allegations in a lawsuit.) Two other merchants have since filed similar federal lawsuits against Monarch. In one case, a former Monarch defense attorney wrote in January Deposit That monarch Entered into an assignment for the benefit of creditors – An alternative to Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Mondavi spoke about his departure last month In a comment on an Instagram post From a farmer who complained about Monarch tractors. The winemaker wrote that he “left more than a year ago due to fundamental differences in approach” after seeing “reliability issues” with Monarch tractors on his farm, and on friends’ farms.

“I wanted to address it through hardware changes, while the CEO thought it could be solved more through software. I strongly believed in a different path, but was eventually blocked and fired along with another co-founder,” he wrote.

Company Sold at auction Most of the remaining tractors were purchased earlier this year.