Silicon Valley venture fund Good AI Capital is opening an office in Montreal.
The new office will be focused on investing in early-stage AI companies, and led by Milad Alucozai, a founding partner at Good AI Capital, who will relocate from San Francisco. Alucozai has a background as a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and inventor.
One of the fund’s most recent investments include Mekonos, an AI chip technology company dedicated to tackling cancer.
Alucozai said Good AI Capital selected Montreal for its latest office following research into markets like the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Canada. The firm called out the city’s deep AI talent, as well as an AI for Good mission advocated by leaders like Yoshua Bengio, a deep learning pioneer and head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA).
“We are already looking for investment candidates and actively working with startups in Montreal, including mentoring promising companies at Techstars Montreal AI Accelerator, Holt Fintech AI Accelerator and Centech,” said Alcuozai. “We are proud to be the first San Francisco-based venture fund to set up an operation such as this and we look forward to paving the way for others.
The $40 million US venture fund invests in companies working in FinTech, healthcare, and enterprise software. Good AI Capital was an early investor in SoFi, an online personal finance company that provides student loan refinancing, mortgages and personal loans that is currently valued at $4.3 billion USD.
One of the fund’s most recent investments include Mekonos, an AI chip technology company dedicated to tackling cancer.
“By relocating Milad to Montreal we are setting the stage to not only invest in local Montreal companies but also to work with them in a hands-on manner to succeed,” said Darwin Ling, founder and general partner at Good AI Capital. “Our Montreal office will also work closely with our office in San Francisco, giving companies in our portfolio access to the best of the Silicon Valley ecosystem in terms of expertise. Our values are well aligned with Montreal’s entrepreneurial ecosystems and we intend to build the most successful startups of tomorrow.”
BCF, the law firm behind pre-seed fund BCF Ventures launched in May 2018, celebrated the decision. “Having been chosen by Good AI Capital to assist them in establishing their new office in Québec and in their subsequent investments, is a testament to the international scope of BCF, to the expertise of our teams and to the impressive growth of the artificial intelligence movement in the Montréal ecosystem,” said Mireille Fontaine, business law partner, member of the board of directors and co-head of the venture capital group at BCF.
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