Jenny Li, Senior Managing Partner of Granite Asia, at the Bloomberg Invest Summit in Hong Kong, China on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
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Venture capitalist Jenny Lee says newly founded companies are reaching the initial public offering stage much faster than in the past.
Lee, a senior managing partner at Granite Asia and the first woman to make it into the top 10 of the Forbes Global 100 VC Midas List, said that while companies in the West prefer to remain a little more private, companies in Asia are leaning toward faster timelines.
“The average holding period for a company before going public is eight to 10 years,” Lee said in an interview on the sidelines of the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore last week. “But today, the late-stage companies we’re seeing are actually four or five years old and preparing for an IPO.”
Investment platform Granite Asia works with startups from first round to listing, both in equity and credit. Lee said the company has made more than 40 equity investments in the past two years.
“We’re seeing a lot more fundraising activity in the very early stages,” Lee said. He added that companies in the later stages of investment are more productive and profitable faster.
Lee said Granite Asia is focusing on areas such as scientific artificial intelligence and robotics. I’m also interested in concepts related to Asian subcultures, such as apps that have particular appeal in India and AI tools that help create Japanese content.
“We are also looking at companies that have energy-related technologies, such as storage, to solve energy problems,” he said. “Many Asian countries import a huge proportion of the energy they need, so having storage technology will be important as countries grow towards deploying more renewable energy.”
