Granite Asia sees startups accelerating IPO plans across Asia

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Asian startups accelerate IPO plans

Highlights

Granite Asia reports Asian startups are preparing for IPOs after four to five years, down from the previous eight to 10-year average.
Granite Asia has made over 40 equity investments in the last two years and is seeing increased early-stage funding activity alongside faster profitability in later-stage companies.
Granite Asia is focusing investments on artificial intelligence, robotics, and energy storage technologies, citing strong regional demand and importance for renewable power adoption.

Faster listing timeline reshapes venture strategy

As reported by CNBC, Granite Asia senior managing partner Jenny Lee says later-stage companies in Asia are now preparing for initial public offerings when they are four to five years old, compared with an average holding period of eight to 10 years before going public.

Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore last week, Lee says companies in the West prefer to stay private a little longer, while Asian firms are leaning toward a more accelerated timeline.

Granite Asia works with startups from their first funding round through public listings, across both equity and credit. Lee says the investment platform has made more than 40 equity investments in the last two years.

AI, robotics and energy tech draw capital

Lee says Granite Asia is seeing more funding activity at the very early stage, while later-stage companies are posting productivity gains and becoming profitable faster.

The firm is concentrating on areas including artificial intelligence for science and robotics. It is also looking at concepts tied to Asian subcultures, such as apps designed specifically for India or AI tools that help create Japanese content.

Energy-related technology is another focus area, particularly storage solutions. Lee says many countries in Asia import a large share of their energy needs, making storage technology increasingly important as economies grow and adopt more renewable power.

In our earlier coverage of China’s humanoid robotics push, we looked at DexForce’s strategy of using virtual simulations and synthetic data to train robots faster and at lower cost than relying mainly on repeated real-world human demonstrations. We also noted the company’s Series B funding and growing commercial deployments, highlighting how investors are backing AI-driven robotics that can move beyond headline-grabbing demos and deliver practical work in factories and consumer settings.

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