Crop.Zone strengthens capital base for serial production

Crop.Zone, manufacturer of the herbicide-free volt.fuel Electrical Weeding System, has significantly strengthened its capital base for entering into serial production. Existing shareholders (incl. Nufarm Limited) and new financial investors (Demeter Investment Managers, Madaus Capital Partners) have increased the equity base of the Aachen-based company by almost 11 million USD.

The innovative crop.zone system offers a natural organic alternative to non-selective synthetic herbicides such as Glyphosate or Diquat. As a highly productive and efficient solution, it is also used in desiccation applications and seedbed preparation.  crop.zone’s system is currently being successfully applied in Europe. It is available through crop.zone’s partners Nufarm, Kamps de Wild and fenaco. crop.zone’s and investors’ objectives for the USD 11 million investment are to open up new international markets and to develop additional agronomic treatment patterns for the crop.zone system.

“Our focus is investing in people, production and scaling. crop.zone will change agriculture by giving the industry a tool to work in a more sustainable and organic manner. Our ambition is to rethink the way we farm”, says CEO Dirk Vandenhirtz, highlighting the key issue that agriculture faces today and that crop.zone aims to address with its renewed investment. Intellectual property is the key when starting serial production of the system, which is already in use in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

“We see the new investment as a great vote of confidence from our partners which shows a high level of trust in the path to a product ready for serial production. crop.zone is now a mature technology that solves problems in international agriculture. It is easy for farmers to use, renders the use of harmful herbicides superfluous and enables  a major contribution to CO2-reduced agriculture”, according to Vandenhirtz.

crop.zone’s existing shareholders, who have co-invest in the current financing round, include Nufarm Limited, developer and manufacturer of crop protection solutions and seed technologies. The company, which has more than 2,500 employees, serves major agricultural markets in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

Nufarm Regional General Manager EuMEA, Hildo Brilleman, says that Nufarm was proud to strengthen its existing partnership with crop.zone as it continues to build on its expanding portfolio of sustainable solutions for farmers.

Brilleman: “This new funding round allows crop.zone to expand their technology into new crops and segments. We are proud to be part of this journey to develop a sustainable potato desiccation and weed control offer for European farmers. Full commercialization of Nucrop will begin this year after a successful trial season in various European countries. As a key partner for commercialization, Nufarm will market the crop.zone solution under its own brand Nucrop across our distribution partners for Ag inputs and farm equipment.”

The investment by Demeter Investment Managers, a major European player in venture capital and private equity for the ecological transition, shows the importance of crop.zone system’s unique selling point of offering an alternative to pesticides in farming.

Demeter managing partner Cyrille Cabaret says: “At Demeter Investment Managers, we believe there is an urgent need to find alternatives to chemical non-selective herbicides in agriculture. The electrical hybrid technology developed by crop.zone offers an effective, competitive, and organic solution to the farmers for crop management. We are thrilled to accompany the crop.zone team in this new development phase alongside renowned partners like Nufarm, LBBZ and Madaus Capital Partners.”

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