ReelData, the Halifax maker of AI for land-based aquaculture, has launched its latest product, ReelWeight, which is a smart camera system for estimating the weight of fish.

The new offering will complement four other products from ReelData that estimate fish’s appetite, stress levels, physical health and biomass. In a social media post, CEO Matt Zimola said ReelWeight took four years to develop.

“Initially, I thought this was going to be a lot easier to do, but it turns out AI for landbased aquaculture is challenging due to things like lighting, high stocking densities, and about 10 other challenges that we had to overcome to make this work,” he wrote.

Founded in 2018 by computer science grads Matt Zimola and Hossein Salimian, ReelData last January raised a US$8 million Series A funding round. And in August the company received $250,000 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to build a camera production facility for the ReelWeight system.

The company has 45 employees, according to LinkedIn data, in keeping with growth plans Zimola laid out at the time of the Series A raise, when ReelData’s team was slightly smaller at 40 people.

“Our industry is a new one,” Zimola said previously of land-based aquaculture. “The tank is kind of a black box.

“It’s really hard to understand what’s happening under the water. So what we are doing is we’re using artificial intelligence to feed fish and weigh fish, which allows farmers to increase their production because fish are growing faster.”