701x is a North Dakota-based agricultural technology company specializing in smart, connected, solar-powered GPS ear tags and management software for the cattle industry. It enables ranchers to monitor livestock health, location, breeding activity and behavior.
“There’s a lot of pressures on the ranching industry today, and there’s not a lot of technology or tools that can help them,” summarizes Sam Fisher, 701x vice president of sales and marketing.
701x was created by Kevin Biffert, a ranch-raised engineer, who saw the lack of effective technological tools available for ranchers.
“We have to develop a feature set that offers a lot more to the rancher,” Fisher adds.
Three Pillars: Registry Services, Herd Management, Devices
Fisher explains 701x’s offerings fall into three primary buckets.
1. Registry Services
701x acquired Digital Beef, a software solution for breed associations. This registry allows users to register animals, manage pedigrees and integrate performance data. He explains 701x is currently working on a rebuild of the registry product to make it a sustainable platform.
2. Herd Management Tools
“Think of this as your on-ranch record-keeping system,” Fisher explains. “Digital calving book, chute‑side mode, breeding record system, even a financial section in there, all available for kind of on‑ranch records.”
701x is working to provide a unified, modern platform that streamlines data from herd management straight into registry services, minimizing manual entry and ensuring consistent, usable records.
Fisher says the 701x system eliminates double/triple entry of data; it makes data searchable and usable and replaces paper records with quick digital access.
Montana Angus producer Sara Stevenson says, “How I best describe 701x is the solution to a long-time problem I was looking for.”
701x helps her manage and communicate herd data. She explains the biggest historical challenge wasn’t collecting data but organizing it over many years and sending accurate information to the American Angus Association and other breed associations.
She says 701x has replaced scattered notebooks and multiple Excel files with one central, long-term system. It allows the Stevenson family to track every animal from birth to sale in one place, including:
- Birth, weaning, yearling data and ratios.
- Health events such as treatments, navel issues, deaths and injuries.
- Fertility records.
- Exact reason an animal leaves the herd — feet, fertility, open or death.
Stevenson emphasizes that bad or incomplete data is worse than no data, and 701x makes it realistic to maintain high-quality, multiyear records.
She shares these additional 701x advantages:
- Time, stress and marriage-saving benefits. Before 701x, Stevenson says Maternal Plus reporting meant referring to years of calving books and tedious backtracking, causing weeks of work, frustration and “marriage” conflict. “701x eliminated the annual stress and fights,” she summarizes.
- Data entry is now done chute-side or same day versus months later, which reduces errors and guesswork. The 701x system ties together EID (electronic identification) tags, wand, scale head and software reducing transposed numbers, missing digits as well as duplicate or outdated spreadsheets.
- Digital workflow keeps accurate cow and calf pasture counts, as well as provides the ability to figure correct vaccine dose and mineral needs and get an immediate check of what animals were missed after working cattle. Stevenson admits they keep paper copies as backup, but the digital data saves their ranch money and time, improves accuracy and reduces stress.
- Strong customer service and partnership. Stevenson compliments the 701x team for being accessible and willing to help when needed. She says 701x is not just a tool; it is a partner in their operation.
“What they’re really going for is that one-stop shop — the Apple of cattle data — and we are very happy with it,” Stevenson summarizes.
3. Smart Livestock Devices
701x offers two types of smart ear tag devices: the xTpro tag for bulls and cows and the xTlite tag for calves.
Fisher says the tags are a management tool providing tangible, practical benefits like GPS tracking, health and behavior alerts and reproductive data. The tags help producers improve breeding rates, reduce losses and gain actionable data, making the investment cost-effective over time.
The Stevensons use xTpro tags in donor cows and herd bulls to help:
- Detect estrus in older donor cows that don’t show strong physical heat signs.
- Track bull activity (steps, mounts) and correlate that with actual calves sired via DNA, revealing which bulls are working harder versus just being lazier. She says this leads to data-backed decisions about which bulls and cows are performing.
Dakota Gerloff of Gerloff Farms, Bland, Mo., manages about 400 seedstock cows and 120 commercial cows. The Gerloffs put xTpro tags in all their herd bulls. He says the biggest benefit of the tags is the peace of mind the system provides his family during breeding season.
While he typically checks his fall cows in person every other day during breeding season, 701x allows him to open the app and see how individual bulls are behaving throughout the day: how active they’ve been, whether they’ve been mounting cows and, generally whether they appear to be doing their job.
He says the tags are a valuable tool in an era when good labor is hard to find. Gerloff adds that he plans to tag his cow herd for heat detection and calving alerts, which could reduce manpower needs by providing timely notifications instead of relying solely on constant physical checking.
User-Friendly Purchasing and Setup
The company aims to make technologically advanced cattle management solutions simple, accessible and valuable to both seedstock and commercial beef producers. Producers can order products directly online through a marketplace. Ongoing support, educational videos and in-person field staff are available to streamline onboarding and maximize value.
Fisher says transparent pricing and simple online purchasing eliminate barriers for adoption.
“We focused on easy, easy, easy, easy,” he says. “You go to 701x.com, there’s a tab for the marketplace ... add to cart ... check out and it’s shipped directly to you.”
Fisher explains the tags come pre-integrated into the software ecosystem, which makes the setup seamless. Producers are supported by educational materials, responsive field staff and personal phone/video help as needed.
The tags are designed to be robust, solar-powered and connected by both cellular and satellite networks for maximum utility and minimal hassle. The system’s value is demonstrable through examples of loss prevention, breeding improvement and labor savings.
Fisher says customer feedback shapes product development and issue resolution, and all customers have open access to knowledgeable staff. 701x continually refines its algorithms and is developing new features like feedyard systems and more advanced monitoring to adapt to industry needs and drive future genetic improvements.
A Seedstock Supplier Service for Bull Buyers
The Gerloff family hosts an annual bull sale each October selling 80 bulls. As a customer service, the Gerloffs tagged all 2025 sale bulls with 701x’s xTpro. If a bull sold for more than $6,500, the buyer was offered a one-year 701x app subscription.
Gerloff says the tag process went smoothly and praises retention and durability. He says they tagged the sale bulls 10 days before the sale. He was originally concerned about the bulls fighting and losing tags before sale day. He reports they didn’t lose any tags despite the tendencies of 20-month-old bulls.
Gerloff says more than half of the buyers who qualified to use the system have made a 701x account thus far. He also notes he has not received one negative call or frustration about the tag.
701x’s core aim is to help both commercial and seedstock producers be more profitable and sustainable by providing customers cutting-edge, practical tools that deliver real-world results.
“I really believe we’re building tools that actually matter,” Fisher summarizes. “Tools that will actually keep people in the beef business, keep families on the same piece of dirt that they’ve always ranched.”
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