LAHORE: The mayor of US city of Austin, Steve Adler, has granted $20 million for the capacity building of technology-based start-ups in Pakistan.

Alicia Dean, founder of an exchange programme, Atx+Pak, said Pakistani start-ups had given a presentation to US investors who were amazed to see the talent. The US State Department got engaged with the exchange programme and offered a grant of Rs20 mil-lion to further build the capacity of Pakistani entrepreneurs. The fund would be provided for mentoring and training start-ups so theycouldgetexposureofinternational business opportunities, she added.

She said the fund would help give maximum exposure to startups besides access to investors for building relationships with them.

Dean said earlier Pakistani startups did not have the opportunity to pitch ideas before international investors but now they would be mentored and trained to pitchideas to Americans.

The start-up culture emerged in Pakistan five years ago after some global and local players started capitalising on the open ground.

Punjab Information Technology Boardisalsorunningitsincubators Plan9 and PlanX.

Plan9 Entrepreneurship Director Nabeel Qadeer said a new era of technology start-ups in Pakistan would begin and chief executives of international companies would soon visit Lahore. He said Pakistani start-ups could compete in the global market after get-ting training from US-based companies.

He also said local investors did not have the capacity to invest more than Rs2 to Rs3 million in technologies, but global investors could easily invest Rs10 to Rs15 million because they were aware of the technologies.

Qadeer said it would take more than a year for start-ups to actually get their share from the $20 million fund. `It will take approximately a year to structure the funding process due to legal and other issues.