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Newly formed companies are reaching the initial public offering stage far sooner than they used to, according to venture capitalist Jenny Lee. In the West, companies like to stay private a little longer, but Asian firms are leaning toward a more accelerated timeline, according to Lee, senior managing partner at Granite Asia and the first woman to break into the top 10 of the Forbes Global 100 VC Midas list. "On average the holding period before a company goes public is eight to 10 years," Lee said in an interview on the sidelines of the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference last week in Singapore. "But currently, the later stage companies we are seeing are actually preparing for IPOs when they are four to five years old." Investment platform Granite Asia works with startups from their first round through public listings, and in both equity and credit. Lee said the firm has made more than 40 equity investments in the last two years. "At the very early stage ... we do see a lot more funding activity," Lee said. She added that companies in later stages of investment are seeing productivity gains and getting profitable faster. Granite Asia is concentrating on areas including artificial intelligence for science, and robotics, Lee said. It is also interested in concepts around Asian subcultures such as apps that would appeal in India specifically, or AI tools that help create Japanese content. Also, "we are looking at companies that have energy-related technology, say in storage, to help with the energy issue," she said. "Many of the countries in Asia import a huge percentage of their energy needs, and so as the countries grow onto a path to adopt more renewables, it's then important to have storage technology."
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