Beyond Exits:

Over the past decade, Southeast Asia’s venture ecosystem has proven its ability to create highly valued private companies as demonstrated by its most celebrated output – unicorn formation. At its peak in 2021, 26 companies crossed the US$1 billion threshold.

But unicorn status is a private market valuation milestone, and it does not necessarily indicate that value can be sustained once a company enters the public markets. When capital is cheap and plentiful, like we saw earlier this decade, companies can raise successive rounds at increasingly higher valuations while continuing to prioritise growth over profitability. When a company launches an IPO, however, it may find public investors are applying greater scrutiny to both valuations and the underlying fundamentals supporting them. A unicorn launching an IPO on a US exchange – another celebrated output in SEA – can run into trouble.

An example of this is Grab, a SEA-based technology platform offering services including ride-hailing, food delivery, digital payments and financial services. The company entered NASDAQ in December 2021 through a record SPAC merger valued at nearly US$40 billion. Its shares initially climbed but reversed to close 21% lower as investors questioned whether its growth could justify its valuation. Late-stage private investors and early-stage public investors took a significant hit.

In the quarter prior to its listing, Grab generated over US$150 million in revenue but still reported a net loss of approximately US$1 billion as the company was still investing heavily to grow and was not yet profitable. Its market debut showed how public investors can quickly adjust expectations when future profits are still uncertain.

How can LPs identify fund managers equipped to support profitable exits?

According to Bain & Company’s Southeast Asia Private Equity Report 2026, exit challenges are the top concerns among SEA private equity investors. For LPs, exits are where private market value becomes real. In theory, unrealized gains may support a fund’s reported performance, but they do not generate distributions or fund new commitments. As holding periods extend and fundraising becomes more selective, DPI is carrying increasing weight alongside IRR and TVPI.

So how can LPs identify fund managers equipped to support profitable exits?

Strategy #1. Considering public listings on domestic exchanges.

Where companies choose to list is also becoming part of the readiness equation. An earlier generation of Southeast Asian technology companies, including Grab, looked to US exchanges for access to deeper global capital pools. For businesses with predominantly local operations and customers, a home-market listing may offer an investor base that is more familiar with the company, its market and its growth story. The “right” exchange may therefore be less about pursuing the largest capital pool, and more about finding the market where a company’s fundamentals and equity story are best understood.

Take the example of Fore Coffee, a venture-backed, technology-enabled Indonesian coffee chain offering premium products at accessible prices. Founded in 2018, the company spent 7 years expanding its store network, strengthening its operating model and building a track record of profitable growth before listing on the IDX in April 2025.

Rather than rushing to go public while still loss-making, Fore Coffee took a cautious approach to prioritise operational maturity and sustainable performance. In FY2024, the company had reached IDR1.04 trillion (US$65 million) in revenue and IDR58.2 billion (US$3.6 million) in net profit. Investor demand reflected this foundation: its IPO was oversubscribed over 200 times, and the share price rose by the maximum permitted 34% on its first trading day. While domestic exchanges in Southeast Asia continue to navigate governance concerns, index adjustments, and volatility headwinds, Fore Coffee has proven that listing locally from an established, profitable base remains a compelling path.

Nonetheless, Southeast Asia recorded 120 IPOs raising approximately US$6.5 billion in 2025 and this trend continued into the first half of 2026 with the region overseeing another 47 IPOs. While venture-backed listings remain relatively limited, other recent examples in the region point to public market appetite:

• Superbank (ID): The digital bank, backed by Emtek, Singtel and Grab, was oversubscribed by 300 times and raised Rp2.8 trillion through its December 2025 listing on the IDX.

• SkyeChip (MY): The Lion X Ventures-backed semiconductor designer raised over RM350 million through its May 2026 IPO on the Bursa Malaysia Exchange, with its public tranche oversubscribed 95 times.

Strategy #2. Leaning into trade sales.

Trade sales are currently the primary exit strategy in the region according to DealStreetAsia’s Private Equity Readout 2025 Report. Trade sales don’t carry the cachet of IPO and are generally viewed as a second-best option. But they can be quicker, less costly and ultimately more profitable. Companies especially ripe for lucrative trade sales are those with high growth potential; new, defensible technologies; and those that tap into new markets.

Fund managers with a strategy that includes focus on women consumers are likely to have portfolio companies with rich prospects for trade sales. Why? Women are still considered a “niche” market despite comprising more than half the population. And, despite the fact that urban women in Southeast Asia make or influence 80 per cent of all purchasing decisions, including 60 per cent of 'traditional' male products such as automobiles and consumer electronics, according to NBCUniversal research.

Take the example of women’s health, long considered “unproven” as a profitable investment opportunity. A survey conducted by AOA Dx found 276 women’s health companies with exits between 2000-2024. Of these, 27 companies saw trade sales of greater than $1B, and overall, the MOIC was 12X, much higher than the typical 2X MOIC for the healthcare industry overall. 

Strategy #3. Intentionally investing in gender-diverse fund managers.

Fund managers should begin exit planning at underwriting rather than when a fund approaches maturity. Building reliable reporting, sound governance and defensible economics not only prepares companies for public markets but also makes them more attractive to potential buyers. For LPs, the most pressing question is whether managers can demonstrate their ability to generate liquidity across different market conditions, rather than relying on a single IPO window. Broader exit pathways can help more managers generate DPI, build repeatable track records and recycle capital into the ecosystem.

According to research conducted by Harvard Business School, venture capital firms that increased their proportion of female partner hires by 10% saw, on average, a 1.5% spike in overall fund returns each year and had 9.7% more profitable exits. So why are gender diverse teams performing better than gender-homogenous teams? The research showed that “both were able to identify equally promising companies at the time of investment. Differences in decision quality and performance came later, when the investors helped shape strategy, recruitment, and other efforts critical to a young company’s survival and growth. Thriving in a highly uncertain competitive environment requires creative thinking in those areas, and the diverse collaborators were better equipped to deliver it” based on their wider range of viewpoints from their lived experiences as men and women.

An excellent example is Jenny Lee, Senior Managing Partner at Granite Asia. Since joining the firm’s senior leadership in 2005, Lee has built a stellar investment track record that includes 21 companies valued at more than US$1 billion, alongside 18 IPOs across five global exchanges and numerous M&A exits. Her experience illustrates the point above: strong investment leadership is not only about identifying promising companies at entry, but helping them navigate the strategic and operational decisions required to reach multiple pathways to liquidity.

From Private Growth to Durable Value

Not every successful Southeast Asian company will, or should, pursue an IPO. At the market level, however, durable liquidity depends on having several exit pathways across the region, including trade sales and strong domestic exchanges. Together, these routes form the exit infrastructure that converts private market growth into realised returns. Moreover, proven liquidity events are key to attracting more private capital to Southeast Asia, seeding more innovation born in the region and fueling overall economic growth.

Southeast Asia’s next milestone is therefore not simply growing the unicorn count, or its next blockbuster IPO, but its ability to convert private growth into more durable, repeatable returns.