Coop 🐔

Uses AI to help people produce food at home

December 03, 2025

Spotlight

What if producing fresh food at home was as easy as using a smart home device?

Quick Pitch: Coop is an agtech company building a decentralized food production network. Its flagship Smart Coop uses AI and computer vision to let households raise chickens and produce eggs autonomously. The system combines durable hardware, automation, and a continuously learning model.

The Problem

  • Centralized Supply: 80% of U.S. eggs come from fewer than 50 producers. A 2023 bird flu outbreak wiped out millions of hens and sent prices up 70%.

  • Distance and Waste: Store-bought eggs travel 1,000 miles and are months old. Families waste over 1,200 pounds of food each year, losing about $1,800.

  • Trust Gap: Most consumers distrust industrial farming and want local control.

Snapshot

  • Industry: Ag-tech and decentralized food production

  • Headquarters: Austin, Texas

  • Year Founded: 2021

  • Traction: 2,000+ Smart Coops deployed across all 50 states, producing over 4 million eggs this year

Founder Profiles

  • AJ Forsythe, Co-Founder, CEO – Founded iCracked (YC, A16Z-backed, acquired by Allstate). Experienced in AI, consumer hardware, and scaling real-world products.

  • Jordan Barnes, Co-Founder, CMO – Former VP of Marketing at iCracked and Head of Marketing at Mercari through IPO. Expert in consumer growth and brand.

Funding

  • Current Round: Raising $3M (Seed)

  • Investors: Brimstone Hill Capital, Carya Venture Partners, Castiron Ventures, Boost VC, Fuel Capital, Chamaeleon 

  • Total Raised: $4.5M (Pre-Seed)

Revenue Engine

  • Hardware Sales: One time Smart Coop purchase.

  • Subscription Model: $84 annual membership for support, features, and AI updates

  • Retail Distribution: Available at Tractor Supply, Sam’s Club, Amazon, Wayfair, PetSmart, and others

What Users Love

  • Produces around 1,500 eggs per year (worth about $900)

  • AI-powered monitoring (EggsteinAI) with real-time alerts and predator detection

  • Clean, quiet, and simple to operate

  • Active community through the app

Playing Field

  • Traditional Coops: Manual, no automation or monitoring

  • Smart Pet Tech (Furbo, Petcube): Monitoring only, not production focused

  • Industrial Ag: Centralized, vulnerable to disruption

Coop's Edge: The only AI enabled backyard system combining automation, vision, and shared learning.

Why It Matters

Backyard agriculture is now mainstream. More than 15 million Americans already keep chickens, representing a $10 billion market. Nearly half of U.S. households grow some of their own food, motivated by a desire for control, transparency, and resilience.

What Sets Them Apart

  • EggsteinAI: Identifies threats in context, reacts in under half a second, and improves with every coop

  • Network Effect: Each unit adds data that strengthens the system

  • Expansion: Core technology can extend to livestock, gardens, and farm monitoring

  • Impact: Each coop offsets about 200 kilograms of CO₂ annually and diverts 150 pounds of food scraps from landfills

Analysis

Bulls Case 📈 

  • Clear demand in a growing $10 billion market

  • Recurring revenue model anchored in hardware

  • Platform can expand beyond poultry

  • Data network improves with scale

  • Proven founders with experience building consumer products

Bears Case 📉 

  • Consumer education and adoption take time

  • Hardware margins and logistics are complex

  • Subscription renewals depend on sustained value

  • Seasonal demand may affect cash flow

  • Competition could intensify as the market matures

Verdict

Coop has execution credentials, national retail reach, and working technology in thousands of homes. Early traction shows this is more than a backyard experiment. The next challenge is scaling production while protecting margins. The bigger question is whether distributed food production becomes infrastructure or remains a lifestyle. The team’s track record and traction suggest they are building the former.

The Startup Pulse

Another happening week in startup funding. Strong activity across AI, robotics, software testing, mortgage tech, e-commerce, and defensetech enabled drones.

  •  Apptronik — Raised new funding valuing the company at around $5B. Investors include Mercedes and Google. The capital will drive mass production of its Apollo humanoid robot and scale commercial rollout.

  •  Harmonic — Secured $120M Series C at a $1.45B valuation to advance its Mathematical Superintelligence framework designed to eliminate AI hallucinations. Co-founded by Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.

  •  Momentic — Announced a $15M Series A led by Standard Capital. Its AI-native software testing platform integrates automated verification directly into the development workflow.

Written by Ashher

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