Canadian venture capital firm Alacrity has set up a base in Mexico City, announcing plans to invest 10 million pesos (US$541,200) into 12 technology startups over the next three years.

To begin with, the venture capital fund wants to invest in software as a service (SaaS) vendors, data analytics service providers, and the companies developing mobile apps, IoT solutions, customer management platforms, and machine learning.

“We will become a strategic partner of high-impact entrepreneurs, accompanying them from the stage of developing a business idea to the scaling of it,” the company states on its website.

Alacrity will initially invest in technology companies operating in and around Mexico City.

Alacrity is more a business accelerator than a venture capitalist. It grooms the startups it invests in by working as a partner and an incubator, training executives in business administration skills and connecting them to a vast network of companies it has allied with.

In the nine years since its founding, Alacrity has invested in more than 70 startups in countries around the globe, with offices in France, the United Kingdom, India, and Turkey.

Its Mexican unit is headed by Mario Enrique Vázquez Santamarina, who will act as CEO, Alejandro Arriaga Sanroman, who will serve as COO, and Ricardo Granja Vázquez, CFO.

Alacrity is looking for startups that are very much in their infancy, as its goal is not to remain an investor but to work as what it calls a “co-creator”.

“We focus on developing scalable solutions for diverse industries such as retail, health, business services, telecommunications, manufacturing, automotive, financial services (non-banking), and tourism and hospitality, among others,” the company said.