Lair East Labs

Lair East Labs

Lair East Labs was founded in 2017 by Jie Li and Michelle Wang, who built the firm around a thesis that early-stage founders need more than US go-to-market help — they need structured access to Asian manufacturing, distribution, and strategic capital. The firm operates from a single headquarters in New York. Strategy centers on a cohort-based accelerator that invests in 8–12 startups per batch. Sectors include enterprise software, AI/ML, fintech, digital health, and proptech. The model pairs seed funding with a multi-week curriculum and culminates in a demo day that connects founders to a network of China-based corporate partners and family offices. The firm also makes follow-on investments through early growth stages. While specific portfolio companies are not broadly publicized, the accelerator's programming emphasizes cross-border corporate pilots and market-entry support as primary value-adds beyond the initial check. Team size and total deployment are not disclosed. The firm has not publicized any operational changes or new fund closes within the last 24 months. Lair East Labs has not reported any adjacent vehicles, philanthropic foundations, or membership-based co-investor clubs, though its accelerator alumni network functions as a de facto community for portfolio founders with interests in trans-Pacific scale. Structurally, the firm occupies a narrow niche in the early-stage landscape — it is neither a generalist New York seed fund nor a pure China-based venture shop. It runs a fixed-duration accelerator program on a venture capital platform, giving it a sourcing model that blends cohort economics with direct investing, a structure more commonly associated with SOSV's HAX or Chinaccelerator than with traditional US seed managers.