Balani Sees Cattle Business as Opportunity Built on Data

Opportunities are often described as a “door opening” – but for Pavan Balani, Co-founder & CEO at CattleOS, his pivotal moment came while standing in line. A native of Panama who studied software development at the University of Washington and earned an MBA at the University of Manitoba, Balani was in a crowded room of people at a pitch competition. He was in the presentation line behind Hashim Farooq with whom he  started chatting and they wished each other good luck.

That conversation eventually led to a business partnership that formed CattleOS, starting with a unique approach for a tech start up. “Rather than starting with technology for a specific problem, we did discovery calls with 200 farmers across different sectors in Western Canada,” Balani explains. “Through these conversations, we learned that cattle farmers in particular struggled with visibility into their operations.” With cattle prices at an all-time high in 2025, Balani realized that the cattle business was ripe for a workflow solution.

“There is so much technology for grain and dairy farmers, yet there is very little for cattle producers who are unique in that their operation size can vary dramatically,” Balani says. He points out that cattle operations can range in size from having several cows to having thousands of animals, and that type of variance doesn’t exist in other ag industry sectors.

Balani and his partner tapped their technology skills to create a platform that helps cattle producers of any size improve their workflow. “Farmers don’t want to change the way they work, so we had to figure out a way to embed technology into their workflow,” he says. Most operations have a morning meeting where the tasks for the day are discussed. This important point in time is when the CattleOS technology automatically records the discussion, assigns tasks to team members to enable real time text updates and clear communication among team members as tasks are completed throughout the day.

Farmers are able to identify operational inefficiencies or "leaky buckets" in real time as compared to traditional farm management software that tracks inputs and outputs after the fact. CattleOS has also begun bringing on paid customers through its $500-a-year First Farms Program, designed to make it easier than ever for producers to understand exactly what they’re signing up for and experience the platform with a simple, transparent offer. 

Capturing data and turning it into action is at the heart of the technology, which is why Balani supports the work of ADT. “Being ADT Certified is very important to us as it is the gold standard of transparency for farmers,” he says. “As a startup company, we stand alongside much bigger tech providers in supporting the ADT Core Principles. We want our customers to be confident we are using their data exactly as they wish – to add value to their operations.”

Getting a startup off the ground is no small task. “It can be easy to think that Steps 1, 2 and 3 will fall into place, but often there are six iterations of Step 1,” Balani observes. “All humans hate uncertainty, but we all must deal with the unknowns and not rush to the next step. Being ADT Certified is a step we are proud to share.”