Author | Tastingo.eth/.sol Talin
Twitter | @TastingoV
On June 13, 2025, Bubble Mart's market value reached $46 billion, and the Wang Ning couple's total wealth broke through $20 billion, successfully entering the global billionaire TOP 100. All of this was completed rapidly within two years, with investment returns far exceeding mainstream assets like gold and Bit.
As someone who has personally experienced the development of the trendy toy industry since 2017, I have seen many popular science and analyses about Bubble Mart, but most are superficial and lack understanding of the real situation.
This article will present another side of Bubble Mart from the perspectives of capital and front-line operations.
First, let me briefly talk about my trendy toy experience:
In 2016, shortly after graduating, I was working in VC. At that time, I noticed Bubble Mart had opened stores in several business districts in Beijing, but when I discovered it was just an agent for the Japanese IP Sonny Angel, I was not deeply impressed. Because in investor common sense, only by owning independent IP can the business space truly have imagination.
At the time, my boss was enthusiastic about OFO, and I focused on exploring shared economy projects, and thus missed Bubble Mart.
The next time I paid attention to Bubble Mart was at the end of 2017. Molly's great success pulled my attention back, but it was too late.
By then, Bubble Mart had been invested in by multiple institutions, with its valuation rapidly rising. I turned to look for "Dragon Two", which was about to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange - 52TOYS. At the end of 2017, I strongly recommended our fund invest in its A round with a valuation of about 200 million yuan.
In 2019, I personally joined 52TOYS, responsible for designer IP signing and incubation, serving over 500 designers, and leading or collaborating on exhibitions, e-commerce platforms, media matrices, and industry competitions. I was therefore recommended by Cornerstone Capital and successfully selected for Forbes China 30 Under 30.
In 2021, Non-Fungible Token emerged, and I resigned to start a business, focusing on NFT IP issuance. More experiences have been recorded on my personal website, which will not be expanded here.
As a practitioner, I once directly competed with Bubble Mart on the designer side, competing for the same market attention and creator resources, thus accumulating insider perspectives and practical experience. At the same time, as a serial entrepreneur, I am more accustomed to understanding a business phenomenon from the perspectives of entrepreneurs and capital operators.
View TLDR:
1) Bubble Mart is a scarce target that cannot be replicated. Its success requires a relaxed and patient environment, whether in capital supply or optimistic consumption expectations, conditions that are now difficult to reproduce.
2) Bubble Mart established stores with a "luxury + Disney" model, binding designers and users' mindsets through an incubation mechanism, creating a high-fault-tolerance moat. Bubble Mart is solid, while its IPs are fluid.
3) Bubble Mart's ceiling moment is when the understanding and purchasing crowd continuously expands, until even the aristocratic class who cannot accept that people like themselves also buy it. It's no longer cool!
I. Bubble Mart Cannot Be Replicated, It Was Born in That Irretrievable Golden Age of Entrepreneurship When Liquidity Was Flooding China
Bubble Mart has become the absolute leader in the trendy toy industry. Why the capital race? Why go public early? Bubble Mart's success is evident.
After withstanding the pressure of the pandemic, Bubble Mart, with ample cash from its listing, went all-in on the overseas market and achieved success in 2024, with Labubu and Crybaby becoming the heroes this time.
Crybaby (left), Labubu (right)
II. In the gradually clarifying development context of overseas trendy toys, people discovered a new luxury goods model.
China is a society of middle and affluent classes with per capita luxury goods, which supported the market value of several major European luxury brands before the pandemic. Even today, after the pandemic, the most frequently shared scenes on social media are "Labubu" paired with luxury or limited-edition trendy clothing, shoes, and bags.
The Wang Ning family had long seen this phenomenon. Their strategic resource investments are often focused on location, brand packaging, store design and decoration, and establishing a unique aesthetic. Their stores are positioned between luxury goods and Disney merchandise stores, cleverly finding their niche.
Bubble Mart France, nearly at the level of a luxury store
When others had not yet reacted before the pandemic, Wang Ning, who came from a retail background, had already figured out the growth flywheel.
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To be honest, the fact that Aaron Kwok could marry someone from a "scammer training camp" also shows the world's improvised nature. Everyone is human, and no one is more noble than others. With more money, you'll still get brainwashed.
2) I'm actually curious about the sales channels for these large collectibles. I've only recently started paying attention to Pop Mart, but the rich second-generation kids (mainly nightclub-style guys) had already started buying these items much earlier. When they were buying, people's understanding was still just blind boxes, but they were already purchasing high-end items worth tens of thousands. Later, their homes were filled with Labubu (and IPs from other companies). What was their mindset?
This is talking about trendy toys. Usually, for blind boxes, there's a 1000% Size large doll with limited sales, which is actually an early step for every designer's debut. When a blind box can be sold, it means the designer has become quite famous. Because blind box development costs are high, while small-batch large-scale soft plastic or resin materials have relatively low costs and are easier to produce.
If you're in the trendy toy circles with different IPs, getting limited edition large doll release information isn't difficult. It's like speculation, and some people can catch the internal market. Once it's launched and speculated, these large dolls can be sold to collectors at prices dozens of times higher. The next one will be even better.
Their mindset is just playing. If you like trendy toys and dive into research, that's okay.
3) Compared to Non-Fungible Token or meme coin market-making, does the trendy toy market have volume actions?
Yes, this is an auxiliary method. It's much simpler to operate than Non-Fungible Token. Everyone batch-cultivates accounts, trading controllable rare chips at very high prices to guide the secondary market prices of ordinary models. If the deviation is too extreme, they'll directly sweep the floor and intervene. Since trendy toys aren't tokens, trading doesn't show true value, and there aren't many records to check. From recommendation algorithms, it can be seen that a low-cost method can create an illusion of high trading prices.
But ultimately, this is just an auxiliary method. If your product isn't good and doesn't catch rich people's attention, it will never start market-making or large-scale sales. Even if market-making is done, if the market doesn't believe it, a real transaction will expose the truth. This IP might need to be rebuilt, continuously operated and iterated until your product is ready to deploy more resources.
Otherwise, if market-making alone could create an IP, how many Labubu would be popular worldwide?
