LAHORE: Government-backed startups need a solid support from private investors to accelerate their business on strong footings.

Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman Dr Umar Saif said at a meeting after a successful demo day of PITB`s project Accelerator Plan X on Saturday.

Former federal finance minister Dr Salman Shah, Managing Director of Karachi Stock Exchange Nadeem Naqvi, industrialists Azam Sehgal, Shehryar Ali and Husain Kanji and other local and foreigner investors attended the meeting.

Dr Saif said entrepreneurship development forums were successfully mobilising the youth to start their own ventures for a few years in Pakistan.

`They have been successful in establishing strong networks of young entrepreneurs and mentors, and have created acompetitive entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As a result, we can now find hundreds of startups in every big city of Pakistan.

He said the PITB had done enough in the form of the government based Incubator (Plan9 PITB`s Tech Incubator), accelerator (Plan X), and freelancing hub (Plan9-Tech Hub) that reinforced the belief and it laid a solid foundation to seriously consider the creation of investment opportunities for growing startups.

In order to meet the increased demand, Dr Saif placed the idea of the government-backed Venture Capital Fund before the participants. He said the Punjab government would provide $10 million while $4.6 million might be invested by the private sector. He said that more startups would be covered by such co-investment.

The participants underwent detailed discussions and assured to play an active role in strengthening the PITB`s efforts being made to help startup entrepreneurs.