DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank and Granite Asia, a leading Asia-focused investment fund, have jointly launched a $110 million artificial intelligence (AI) initial public offering (IPO) fund, exclusively for the bank’s high-net-worth clients, according to a statement released Monday.
The fund aims to address a critical gap in capital availability for Asian startups, particularly those focused on AI, which often receive significantly less funding than their counterparts in the United States. “The U.S. Is amply funded, if not overfunded,” said Jenny Lee, senior managing partner at Granite Asia, in a recent interview with Fortune. Data from KPMG indicates that U.S. Companies secured 10 of the 11 largest deals in the final quarter of 2025.
The three-year partnership between DBS and Granite Asia seeks to provide early-stage investment in promising AI companies across the region. DBS CEO Tan Su Shan noted that traditional banks are often reluctant to lend to startups due to their high cash burn rates. “We were bemoaning the fact that there was so much talent, but not enough capital to fund these guys,” Tan recalled, describing a conversation with Lee that sparked the collaboration during a conference in Qatar in 2025.
The disparity in funding is stark. While Chinese AI startup Moonshot, the developer of the Kimi model, raised $500 million earlier this year, Anthropic, the creator of the Claude model, secured $30 billion in the same period. The new fund will offer investors “early access” to high-growth AI companies in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Europe, with Granite Asia managing the pooled capital and directing it towards IPO-stage businesses.
DBS, ranked No. 7 on the Southeast Asia 500, has a long history of supporting entrepreneurship, stemming from its origins as the Development Bank of Singapore in 1968. Established to manage industrial financing for Singapore’s Economic Development Board, the bank has consistently focused on backing businesses throughout their growth stages, according to Tan. “We were always about backing entrepreneurs, and supporting businesses from early- to mid-growth, and beyond,” she said.
The partnership is too intended to provide DBS’s wealth clients with access to potentially higher-return investment opportunities in growth assets and private markets. Tan explained that investing in upstream companies within the AI supply chain could generate greater returns than more conservative options like exchange-traded funds. “If you want alpha, you’ve got to go up the value chain, up the supply chain, to more upstream companies.”
Granite Asia, with approximately $10 billion in assets under management, has a proven track record, having supported 65 IPOs globally. The firm originated from U.S. Venture fund GGV Capital, which separated its Asia and U.S. Operations in 2024. Granite Asia has previously collaborated with sovereign wealth funds including Khazanah and the Indonesia Investment Authority.
Lee, who established one of GGV’s first China offices in 2005, has invested in prominent regional tech companies such as Xiaomi and Grab. Granite Asia has also diversified into private credit financing. Both Lee and Tan emphasized the importance of a regionally focused approach. “This multi-asset partnership is deeply rooted in Asia,” Tan stated. “It brings together the understanding of Asian needs, Asian capital, Asian purpose, Asian knowhow, Asian hardware and software.”
