Sam Rogers is Founder and CEO of GrazeMate, an autonomous drone platform that herds cattle using AI and robotics. At 19 years old, Sam combines deep agricultural experience with cutting-edge technology to transform livestock management.

Sam grew up on his family's 6,000-head cattle station in Bowen, Northern Queensland, Australia. He studied robotics at University of Sydney and worked with CSIRO and the Australian Centre for Robotics, publishing machine learning research from age 15 before dropping out at 18 to launch GrazeMate.

Sam taught himself to code in Chinese to work with affordable drones when starting out. He was accepted into Y Combinator Winter 2026 cohort and relocated to San Francisco to scale operations.

GrazeMate raised 1.2M in pre-seed funding led by Y Combinator, with participation from Antler, NextGen Ventures, and Meat & Livestock Australia. The company is mustering thousands of cattle weekly across 1.7 million acres in Australia and expanding into the US market.

GrazeMate's autonomous drones reduce mustering costs by roughly half, cutting what traditionally took a full day with helicopters and motorbikes to three clicks on a phone. The platform simultaneously estimates animal weights, measures grass biomass, monitors water levels, and detects sick animals, giving ranchers complete visibility into operations.