``In fact it is still the same rigmarole that I had to go through in 1987 for the 8 lakh odd immigrant students and over one million new residents who throng the country every year in search of the great American dream,'' he says.

This former Kimberly Clarke employee has thus decided to make the trek to the promised land that much easier for those who follow him by setting up coming2america.com, a portal to provide what he calls a "cradle to grave" handholding for new aspirants.

So much so, armed with his idea and business plan Anand Kuchibhotla, president and CEO, has already been able to raise sizeable quantities of dollars February last to start work on the portal that is expected to be launched in about a month's time.

"Most of the first round investors, who include Silicon Valley Angels, are willing to pump in money a second time amounting to anything between $5 million and $10 million," Kuchibhotla says refusing to divulge the exact figures. ``Discussions have concluded and I should be signing the deal soon,'' he adds.

Ultimately an investment of a little over $20 million will be going into the portal that interestingly spans clientele not just from India but across Asia and even Europe.

"I will not be investing over $20 million just for a revenue of $2 million. I will be depending upon multiple revenue streams not just advertising banner rates", he says.

The site, which will be up and running in about a month's time, will initially have seven channels on education, careers, business, life, travel, immigration and sports. This will be followed by an agony aunt column, for Asian women based in the US, and one for senior citizens, he says.

Though one would have expected major traffic to come from the sub-continent, China and Japan are the major focus countries from where the NRI expects most of the traffic and revenues to come from. This is not surprising considering 50 per cent of the total immigrant population in the US constitutes Chinese and Japanese, he says.

"There is much hype around IT and software. But these are not the only professions where opportunities exist in the US", stresses Kuchibhotla. And coming2american.com will focus on all these apart from filling in the blanks which every visitor to the US faces every day.