Michelin Development, the business loan branch of French international tyre giant Michelin, has backed Scotland's Ace Aquatec with a grant to help fund its next stage of growth, the latter announced.

Ace Aquatec produces humane stunners for fish farmers as well as biomass cameras to monitor underwater growth and acoustic deterrents for predators, and has grown significantly since its first funding round in 2019 to begin selling its products around the world.

Michelin's grant has already reportedly created 10 new roles at the firm's headquarters in Dundee this year, from which it co-ordinates engineers and distributors in Chile, Canada and Norway.

"We are focused on being the innovation partner of choice for those leading the blue revolution in developing welfare-first aquaculture technologies," said Nathan Pyne-Carter, CEO at Ace Aquatec.

"The grant from Michelin Development is supporting us with further targeted, sustainable growth by enabling us to invest in the delivery of more advanced digital data to provide insight to the fish farming community, and to create more new roles in areas including sales, operations and software development in Dundee over the next two years."

"Access to the funding has been invaluable to us in supporting our hiring programme
and investment in technological innovations."

Michelin Development said it can supply loans of up to £100,000 to B2B organizations with fewer than 250 employees in the manufacturing and service sector, adding that Ace Aquatec is "just the type of business we are geared up to support."