Cavallo Ventures, the venture capital arm of Wilbur-Ellis, has made a strategic investment in ZingPR clienCrop Enhancement. This is a significant development for Crop Enhancement, which now has the support of agricultural giant Wilbur-Ellis as it gears up for commercialization this year.

Here's a quick summary of the news

• Cavallo Ventures and Crop Enhancement have a shared vision: a future in which pesticide use is reduced or eliminated, resulting in enormous benefits for growers, consumers, and the environment. (Bad news for pests, however!)

• With this investment, Cavallo Ventures is backing an emerging agtech company that, like its other investments, is focused on sustainable ag. Specifically: Crop Enhancement aims to reduce the use of pesticides by protecting crops with a spray-on membrane/coating.

• This is an important validation of Crop Enhancement's technology by a major ag player with enormous experience and presence in Crop Enhancement's target markets.

"We're glad to be able to back the Crop Enhancement team as they develop innovative solutions to long-standing challenges in production agriculture," said Mike Wilbur, president and CEO of Cavallo Ventures. "Their unique approach addresses trends in the food and ag industry calling for products that are more sustainable and friendlier for growers, their farms and the global ecosystem."

There are 3 key drivers for a more ecologically smart approach to IPM that Crop Enhancement has developed:

1. Consumers want to eat natural/healthy/whole foods and demand visibility into how their food was produced.

2. Food manufacturers and growers are responding to this need, and have their own CSR goals around sustainability and being good stewards of the environment.

3. Governments have also intervened with regulations to interdict the use of known harmful substances.

"Growers around the world tell us that they want solutions that are good for their farms as well as the environment," said Kevin Chen, Ph.D., CEO of Crop Enhancement. "In trials we've completed, our first product, CropCoat, is proving to be an effective and sustainable crop protection technology. As we expand our efforts to fruits and vegetables here in the U.S., we're delighted to welcome Cavallo Ventures into the fold."