Good AI Capital is calling itself the first Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund to open a new office in Montreal.

The fund’s office will focus on investing in early stage AI companies. Montreal possesses a reputation as a centre of excellence in artificial intelligence (AI).

“Our Montréal 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,” said Darwin Ling, Founder and General Partner at Good AI Capital. “Our values are well aligned with Montréal’s entrepreneurial ecosystems and we intend to build the most successful startups of tomorrow.”

Milad Alucozai, a founding partner at Good AI Capital, will relocate from San Francisco to head up the Montreal office. Good AI said Alucozai has extensive experience in neuroscience and entrepreneurship, and will help startups, nonprofits, and large organizations.

The fund selected Montréal following extensive research “that took him and his colleagues across the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Canada.”

“During our many trips to Montréal we were humbled by the overwhelming reception received from various universities, accelerators, incubators and local venture capital groups. It was clear to us that the Montréal ecosystem was shaping in a way that was ripe for our involvement and hungry for our style of venture capital,” said Alucozai

According to Alucozai, a few factors influenced the company’s decision. First, the city has an “AI-for-Good” mission of leveraging AI to improve lives and impact the community. As well, Montréal has a growing AI ecosystem fueled by startups, academia, venture capital groups, accelerators, incubators and industry and government leaders.

“We are already looking for investment candidates and actively working with startups in Montréal, including mentoring promising companies at Techstars Montreal AI Accelerator, Holt Fintech AI Accelerator and Centech,” said Alucozai. “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.”

With a mission to “do well by doing good,” Good AI Capital says it invests in those who are “keen on applying AI to solve challenging problems and create competitive advantages.”

The fund was an early investor in SoFi, an online personal finance company that provides student loan refinancing, mortgages and personal loans. It is currently valued at $4.3 billion US. Most recently, the fund – along with Elementum Ventures and Novartis – invested in Mekonos, an AI chip technology company dedicated to tackling cancer.