Five years ago, we had an undisclosed interview with Wang Ning of POP MART

After nearly five years since its listing, POP MART's market value once exceeded HKD 370 billion—three times more than when it was listed. Discussions about how investors missed, underestimated, or exited too early have resurfaced once again.

In early December 2020, we had an interview with Wang Ning.

At this time, POP MART's IPO was imminent. Wang Ning, sitting in the Beijing Wangjing Puxiang Center office, appeared calm and composed.

Before Wang Ning, we had already interviewed several of POP MART's most important investors: Mai Gang (Chuangye Gongchang), Tu Zheng (Fengqiao Capital), He Yu (Heiyi Capital), and Su Kai (Sequoia China), among others. Wang Ning was the final piece of the puzzle to complete the article.

The legend of capital always stirs people's hearts because it is too human. Between Wang Ning and the investors, there are stories of a talent scout and a prized horse, brotherhood formed in humble beginnings, as well as the unwillingness of those who were abandoned by the world, regrets of not acting sooner, and of course, a happy ending for all.

There is no more vivid human story than this.

Now, these stories have become the past, and most of the investors mentioned in the article have exited at different stages. For example, early investor Tu Zheng announced earlier last month that they had concentrated their exit within a week and no longer held any shares in POP MART.

Our interview with Wang Ning in 2020 mainly revolved around the company's financing story. The key parts were presented on the day of POP MART's listing. You will find that stock prices change, companies change, industries change, concepts change, but human nature remains unchanged.

Today, "Dark Tide Waves" re-releases this article from five years ago. Before this, we also excerpted some unpublished content from the interview with Wang Ning at that time.

Dark Tide: How do you view the change in investors' attitudes towards you and POP MART?

Wang Ning: To put it simply, at first, everyone was raising pigs, and suddenly someone raised cattle, which could be sold at a high price, so everyone started raising cattle. Raising cattle refers to TMT; everyone used to think it had prospects, high growth, imagination, and was quite attractive. But now they suddenly find they can't invest in raising cattle anymore. Some companies that were not favored ten years ago are now seen by many as still having value.

Dark Tide: How disappointed were you when so many investors rejected you?

Wang Ning: I wasn't really disappointed. I think it's not a bad thing; maybe when everyone deeply participates, it becomes more troublesome.

Once, an investor took me to learn from Huang Taiji, who was thriving at the time; companies focused on heavy marketing were particularly popular. But fortunately, we still insisted on not going down that path.

Dark Tide: What do you want to say to the investors who considered you but didn't invest?

Wang Ning: There is one particular regret. They could have taken a relatively large share at a relatively low price, but during our last conversation, the other party asked me a very poor question: after I explained what we wanted to do, they suddenly asked, "Why would such a good opportunity fall to you? Why not AoFei? Why not those big companies? Why would such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity be given to you small companies?" After Ta asked me, I didn't want Ta to invest anymore.

There have been too many times of being stood up. But now, it seems like the best arrangement.

Dark Tide: A year before going public, Golden Eagle Commerce cleared all its shares, which was a huge loss.

Wang Ning: We were also surprised when they took action at that time. I think they might have felt that it was already a historical high point, or according to their logic—maybe a PE of over ten times was already good. This is somewhat like Li Zeqiang's relationship with Tencent back in the day.

Dark Tide: What kind of investor do you think is the best investor?

Wang Ning: Being able to understand is definitely very important. Choosing an investor is actually like dating: first, you have to be attracted to each other, you recognize me, and I recognize you; but sometimes, love at first sight doesn't necessarily mean reliability, because I might not look as beautiful as an influencer. So time is also very important; we need to go through many stories together before I can fall in love with you.

Dark Tide: When will more people realize that POP MART is not just a trendy toy store, but a platform and a culture?

Wang Ning: We held a trendy toy exhibition one year, and I invited investors to see the exhibition. At that time, Tu Zheng was particularly excited and ran to the entrance to tell me the first thing: Where is your booth? I said, all of this is our booth.

After each exhibition, we have an after party, taking them (foreign artists) to experience Chinese culture. The first year at the top of Pangu Plaza, they saw the Bird's Nest; the second year at the bar of the Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai Pudong, they saw the bustling Lujiazui; in 2019, we chartered a boat to take them on a cruise on the Huangpu River, allowing them to feel China's growth.

Many people told me that they used to think Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour was the most beautiful, but now they have discovered that Shanghai's Huangpu River is also very beautiful.

Dark Tide: You almost started your business right after graduation. What was your original intention for starting a company?

Wang Ning: It's very simple, I wanted to make my life a bit more interesting; I enjoy this uncertainty.

When I was still a college student, I held meetings with my classmates and said that the first bucket of gold in life is not money, but our experiences. In my sophomore year, I asked everyone if we could start a company in the future.

At that time, it was very simple; I just hoped that when we got old, at 80 years old, I could tell my grandson: Your grandfather is a person with stories.

The following is the original text, first published on December 11, 2020, by authors Wu Ruirui, Liu Jing, and Ba Rui, edited by Liu Jing.

Behind POP MART's market value exceeding 100 billion

At the end of 2019, very few people realized that POP MART's door to financing in the primary market would be permanently closed.

Tencent was just one step away from entering this case. A "very weighty" senior executive personally came to meet POP MART founder Wang Ning, and the involvement of this senior executive often represents Tencent's level of importance attached to an investment. However, when Tencent completed its due diligence on this trendy toy company, negotiated the valuation, and had already progressed to the final step of reaching an investment—signing the SPA (Share Purchase Agreement)—the negotiations collapsed “The main issue is the disagreement over the company's governance structure: Tencent wants a veto power, which Wang Ning definitely disagrees with,” an investor close to Wang Ning told 36Kr. POP MART is not short of money—its total revenue in 2019 was 1.683 billion, and the company has maintained a high growth rate of over 200% for the past three years.

Just as Tencent hesitated, Zhengxin Valley Capital and Huaxing Capital rushed in: valuing the company at 2.5 billion USD, they invested about 100 million USD in succession. Even Huaxing Capital's Bao Fan, who is adept in the investment circle, expressed to 36Kr the difficulty of this investment, saying, “Wang Ning is quite hard to schedule.” Ultimately, the decisive factor was the “less than 20 days from decision to investment” efficiency. Zhengxin Valley had a prior connection with POP MART: partner Ye Chunyan admitted to 36Kr that they had looked at POP MART as early as the beginning of 2018, but had concerns about the company's reliance on a few IPs, so they continued to observe for a while. Even so, at this point, only Zhengxin Valley obtained a small amount of new shares, while the rest came from the transfer of old shareholders.

But this was already the last opportunity for VC and PE investors to get on board.

According to 36Kr, “almost all large mid-to-late stage funds, Alibaba, and even Li Zekai's family office” had sought opportunities to invest in POP MART over the past six months, but none succeeded. An investor in POP MART told 36Kr, “If you agree to any one person, you offend all the others (old shareholders).”

In fact, over the past nearly three years, Wang Ning has hardly offered new shares to any investors. Instead, he has been gradually reclaiming shares from old investors. This has resulted in a rather remarkable phenomenon: according to POP MART's prospectus, Wang Ning still holds controlling interest in the company—56.33%.

In stark contrast, the founding teams of new economy companies often experience multiple rounds of equity dilution, and by the time of IPO, their shareholding is mostly pitifully small.

Indeed, POP MART is an atypical, even entirely opposite, Chinese business story.

In the past one or two decades, with the development of the VCPE industry, China's primary market has formed a somewhat closed situation: there are only a few dozen investment institutions that are truly “in the game,” and they can instantly make a company with massive amounts of capital, allowing founders to go from rags to riches at the bell-ringing ceremony.

But Wang Ning has always been an “outsider.” For a long time, POP MART seemed to have no connection with the venture capital circle: even after finding the growth engines of Molly and blind boxes, offline retail projects were still too “unsexy” during the heated battles of shared economy, internet finance, and O2O. This also resulted in the fact that until 2017, POP MART's single financing round was at most 30 million (still pieced together by multiple institutions), and at least only 2 million. And for Wang Ning, perhaps more important early investors like Fengqiao Capital's Tu Zheng, angel investor Mai Gang, Black Ant Capital, Golden Eagle Commerce, and Huqiang Capital, etc.—some are local capital mainly engaged in amusement parks, wine, and shopping malls, some are obscure or newly established funds, and some don't even qualify as “institutions.” It is this group of once "unknown individuals" that created the most exaggerated IPO story of 2020. After a subscription that was over 356 times oversubscribed, POP MART went public today (December 11), with an opening market value reaching HKD 100 billion—meaning that in just one year since the last round of financing of USD 2.5 billion, POP MART's valuation has increased fivefold.

The Long Dawn Before

It wasn't until three months later that angel investor Mai Gang saw that email.

The email was sent by Wang Ning's team, who was looking for startup funding. It was the summer of 2012, and Mai Gang had been running his startup factory for seven years. His investment preference was to invest in "outstanding young people"—despite the diverse backgrounds of these entrepreneurs, he generally maintained an investment amount of 2 million per deal.

A few days later, in a residential house in Shuangyushu, Beijing, Mai Gang met the 25-year-old entrepreneur. "It felt like opening a window." Many years later, Wang Ning told 36Kr that he hadn't even thought that offline stores could also be financed.

Mai Gang and Wang Ning met for three consecutive days. The boy in glasses and a light blue shirt told him that he wanted to create a store similar to "Hong Kong LOG-ON." After carefully listening to Wang Ning's product selling points, Mai Gang was not completely convinced but felt that the general direction was correct.

However, on the fifth day of their meeting, Mai Gang decided to invest. His reason was that Wang Ning possessed a rare quality of "calmness, composure, cleanliness, and no nonsense," and he was willing to invest 2 million to support this young man.

After signing the investment agreement, the two went to a bar in Wudaokou. Amidst the noise, the always "very calm" Wang Ning suddenly raised his voice a bit: "Mai Ge, you invest in me today, if I were Jay Chou, you would be Wu Zongxian." (Wu Zongxian had a significant role in Jay Chou's career.) Wang Ning is a die-hard fan of Jay Chou, and to this day, his office still has decorations featuring Jay Chou's cartoon image and a set of drums. The middle-aged Mai Gang was confused: "What is their relationship?"

Being Wu Zongxian is not easy; Mai Gang's most important post-investment service was to help POP MART find its next round of financing. In 2013, Mai Gang introduced Tu Zheng, who was then at Qifu Capital, and he invested 6 million. Tu Zheng recalled to 36Kr that at that time he "didn't even know (Wang Ning) was going to do trendy toys," but he was certain of one thing: "There must be opportunities in offline consumption."

Even Jin Ying Commerce, which invested in the A round, did not expect POP MART to have the growth rate it later achieved. At that time, their idea was to "create some differentiation and highlights in the mall, which has strategic significance." They were not even concerned about the short-term returns on this investment.

However, it is no wonder that investors "couldn't understand" this project. In the few years when Wang Ning urgently needed financing, it was the era when e-commerce was wildly sought after—financing for companies like JD.com and Vipshop started at hundreds of millions of dollars. As an offline store, POP MART, in the eyes of investors, was just a "store selling dolls and small table tennis," "neither losing nor making money, but also not able to grow." The team itself is not impressive enough. Wang Ning has an average education, has never held a proper job, and speaks with a calm expression, "lacking charisma," and there are "no elites" in the team.

"I have almost met all the investors and financial advisors." An early investor in POP MART recalls that, apart from financial institutions, Wang Ning even met with industrial capital like Light Media and Aofei. At that time, Wang Ning always brought a long PPT, saying he wanted to be China's Bandai and Mattel (Japanese and American toy giants), but each time he went with high hopes and returned disappointed.

A representative story is that a fund under Hunan TV also looked at POP MART, but after a long due diligence, they still did not invest. An investor close to Wang Ning told 36Kr that during their last meeting, after listening to Wang Ning talk about the bright prospects, the other party said something that has stuck with Wang Ning to this day, roughly meaning: "How could such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity fall to you?"

Repeated financing failures left POP MART hanging by a thread for a long time. Tu Zheng and Sequoia Capital China partner Su Kai both told 36Kr that every penny they provided was almost "lifesaving money." According to Tu Zheng, after the first investment, he followed up with three more investments; Jin Ying later invested another 20 million, saying, "The company had no money to pay salaries, with less than 1 million in the account."

The cash crunch peaked in mid-2016. At this point, Wang Ning decided to lead POP MART to challenge the New Third Board—although in hindsight this move was of limited significance, as the New Third Board has had almost no liquidity in recent years—he needed 30 million yuan, which was eventually "broken down into three parts" to gather.

"It was really like taking off the last pair of pants." Tu Zheng lamented to 36Kr that at that time, the total scale of Qifu Capital's first fund was only about 100 million yuan, "already at the upper limit." The later investment from Huqiang Capital was also his LP, and he even used "resources from his hometown in Zhejiang" to help Wang Ning introduce some individual investors.

Every investor interviewed by 36Kr mentioned that Wang Ning is an emotionally stable person who rarely shows any turbulence. Even during the most difficult times in financing, he did not display any unusual emotions.

Until September of that year, POP MART finally completed this difficult financing. At this moment, Wang Ning probably did not expect that dawn was approaching.

A Regrettable Exit

On September 8, 2017, the exhibition hall at the Beijing National Convention Center was packed to the brim. Here, POP MART held its first "International Trend Toy Expo."

"Crazy!" All investors described it this way. At that time, the queue at the entrance was "hundreds of meters long," and scalper tickets were being sold at "incredible prices," even at one point nearly being warned to cancel due to the excessive number of people. When it was held for the second time in Shanghai, Tu Zheng initially did not understand the situation and loudly asked Wang Ning at the venue, "Where is our booth?" Wang Ning also replied loudly, "All of this is our booth!"

This was a critical moment. Su Kai emphasized to 36Kr that these two exhibitions made Wang Ning instantly realize "how big the trendy toy market is." After that, he became more determined to bet on the trendy toy track, accelerating the transformation from a lifestyle collection store to a trendy IP service provider. **

The other significance of the trendy toy exhibition is that POP MART is no longer just an ordinary player in the trendy toy industry, but in a sense, an ecosystem builder. Wang Ning once told 36Kr that after each exhibition, POP MART would hold an after party. In the first year, he booked the top floor of the Beijing Pangu Plaza, and the next time it was at the top floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai. On another occasion, he chartered a boat to take all the artists on a tour of the Huangpu River, "just to help them understand Chinese culture and feel China's growth." Several foreign artists told him that they used to think Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour was the most beautiful, but now they have discovered that Shanghai is also very beautiful.

The introduction of Molly is another key variable for POP MART. If the first six years of POP MART's establishment were about setting up dominoes, then Molly is the first domino: at one point, 70-80% of POP MART's revenue came from this "proud little girl" character.

Finding Molly was also a winding story. Initially, Wang Ning introduced the Japanese cartoon character Sonny Angel, which was negotiated by Su Kai accompanying him to Japan. To increase the chances of success, Wang Ning told the elderly founder that Su Kai "is a big figure from China," and the other party later gifted Su Kai "a limited edition of which only 20 exist globally." However, the good times did not last long; after the other party discovered that Sonny Angel was selling well at POP MART, they "continued to suppress and restrict him (Wang Ning)," which forced Wang Ning to seek new IP.

In 2016, Wang Ning asked trendy toy enthusiasts on Weibo what they liked recently, and "seven or eight out of ten people mentioned Molly." Due to previous lessons, Wang Ning signed an exclusive operating agreement with Molly from the start. "So without Sonny Angel, there would be no Molly," Su Kai said.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact turning point for POP MART; it is a gradual process. Su Kai believes there are three core variables: first, the emergence of Molly (and the subsequent popularity of blind boxes); second, the trendy toy exhibition; and third, Wang Ning recruited the merchandise director for Nike's northern region, who boldly helped Wang Ning implement the "widening and deepening" strategy, allowing the SKU in POP MART stores to "change from one or two thousand to over a hundred in just three months."

From the data perspective, starting in 2017, POP MART began to show a steep growth curve: in 2017, total revenue was 158 million yuan; in 2018, revenue was 514 million yuan.

Not a moment too early, nor a moment too late, he stepped in "on the eve of the explosion," another key investor in POP MART: He Yu, managing partner of Black Ant Capital.

More than a year ago, He Yu was responsible for consumer investments at ByteDance, and at that time, he had met Wang Ning. Initially, he had reservations about POP MART. However, after studying Disney and Japan's Bandai, he found that the rise of both "was due to capturing the channels, and the upstream IP and content naturally gathered around them, allowing the platform to accumulate scale and loyalty, ultimately building an entertainment empire." Just after the trendy toy exhibition ended, the first phase of Black Ant's fund was also nearing completion, and the investment timing was right At the end of 2017, Black Ant first invested in POP MART, and subsequently invested in three more rounds—including the $2.5 billion round.

However, by the end of 2017, Wang Ning had no intention of opening new shares to investors. During this time, Su Kai and Wang Ning had a hot pot meal together. Su Kai asked him: Are you still raising funds? Wang Ning shook his head. Wang Ning had also realized that the company had passed the time of needing money.

By 2018, POP MART was clearly a rapidly growing company, but there were still shareholders who did not wait until the end.

Jin Ying was once the second largest shareholder of POP MART, holding 18.23% of the shares before its listing on the New Third Board in 2017. However, according to public information, in February 2019, Jin Ying sold all of its shares. According to 36Kr, this transaction was completed at a valuation of 1.5 billion RMB, while POP MART's profit at that time was about 100 million RMB. Some consumer investors told 36Kr that if referring to traditional offline consumer companies, a 15 times P/E valuation model could not be considered high, but for Jin Ying, "it can't be considered a huge loss either."

However, considering POP MART's current market value, this is clearly a rather regrettable exit.

"Everything is for the best"

He Yu told 36Kr that in the four rounds of investment by Black Ant in POP MART, "there were virtually no competitors" before 2019.

This is also related to the trend in the investment circle. Ying Jinfeng, founding partner of Mu Mian Capital (FA), once told 36Kr that before 2019, "the range of institutions available for brand-related projects was very limited," and "many institutions simply did not look at brands." After 2019, with the complete exhaustion of mobile dividends, consumption and To B finally entered the sight of investors.

In He Yu's view, the "cognitive turning point" for the investment circle regarding POP MART appeared in the first half of 2019. In May of that year, Wang Ning gave a speech at an LP summit hosted by Black Ant, and "the response on site was very good."

After that, institutions in the primary market began to hunt for POP MART. Several investors told 36Kr that they received a large number of WeChat applications every day, "without asking, you know they want to use connections to invest." At this summer's 36Kr China Future Investors Summit, Fang Yuan, founding managing partner of Xingjie Capital, hesitated and said, "The capital story behind POP MART could fill a book." According to 36Kr, as an LP of Black Ant Capital, Xingjie co-invested in a round of POP MART's financing in 2019.

Even for someone as familiar as Su Kai, the investment process was quite tortuous. To advance this project, Su Kai arranged a lunch between Wang Ning and Shen Nanpeng in 2018. After chatting for more than an hour, Shen Nanpeng told Su Kai, "This is a good company. After the first round, we need to invest in the second round." The implication was: invest heavily and continuously.

However, this investment progressed quite slowly. By the time Sequoia officially completed the investment transaction, it was already near summer. "50% is for business purposes, and 50% is for feelings," Su Kai said, emphasizing that Wang Ning is indeed a "person who values feelings." Bao Fan told 36Kr that when Huaxing invested in POP MART, according to the general market view, a valuation of $2.5 billion is indeed not low, but they conducted a "targeted survey of over 5,000 people" and received a clear feedback - the "Z generation" has four labels: "lazy," appearance-oriented, embracing national brands, and pursuing niche markets. "These four points are all met by POP MART." The implication is that he can fully accept the short-term premium.

Ye Chunyan, a partner at Zhengxin Valley Capital, told 36Kr that POP MART's advantage lies in the fact that it has formed a business closed loop from IP incubation, design, production to online and offline sales, and it is also an open-link system. It can be said that all top domestic and foreign IPs can be produced using the POP MART model, and it will become a new monetization method for these IPs, which has great imaginative potential.

By 2020, POP MART's equity structure had basically stabilized. According to 36Kr's sorting, Sequoia, which holds 4.87%, is its largest external institutional investor, while Pre-IPO investors Zhengxin Valley Innovation Capital and Huaxing Capital hold 3.5% and 1.98% of the shares, respectively.

On the eve of the IPO, Wang Ning had an exclusive interview with 36Kr. When discussing his past financing journey, he did not elaborate much, only saying meaningfully, "Everything is the best arrangement."

Victory "Outside the Camp"

Once, an investor went to meet Wang Ning and told him a story. The gist was: if you are a billionaire and urgently need to leave but find that the kitchen faucet is left on, you would likely feel anxious. However, if there is a fountain in the garden that sprays water continuously 24 hours a day, you would not feel anxious; instead, you would think the fountain is beautiful.

He wanted to express that: in rational consumption, people will be frugal, but emotional consumption is another matter. Although Wang Ning indicated that this was a psychological test he saw online, long after, this investor still remembered this statement vividly, "proving he has very unique thinking."

In the interview with 36Kr, every investor mentioned: "Wang Ning has a calm personality, speaks little, does not show anger or joy, and possesses many excellent qualities of a 'consumer entrepreneur.'" For example, in Bao Fan's view, most Chinese companies do not have enough respect for time and are accustomed to emphasizing "the only thing that can break the world is speed," but Wang Ning is "very patient." Once, when Bao Fan discussed the company's development speed with him, Bao Fan said, "In such a hot market, opening 500 or even 3,000 stores is not a problem. Why have you only opened 100 stores?" Wang Ning's answer was, "My current ability can only open this many."

"It is also a kind of purity, just wanting to succeed." Su Kai remembers that when he first met Wang Ning, he heard a story: when Wang Ning was just starting college, he participated in a street dance competition and was eliminated in the first round. Then he practiced hard until he won the championship by the end of his sophomore year. To some extent, this also reflects the difficult journey of POP MART in the following years In 2018, Wang Ning opened his first offline store in Shanghai at Hongqiao Henglong Plaza. Coincidentally, Tu Zheng's office was also located there at the time. Once, Tu Zheng asked him why he chose this location, and Wang Ning explained that before graduating, when he was looking for a job at Shanghai Stadium, he had thought about buying a suit at the nearby Hongqiao, only to find that each one cost over ten thousand yuan. After discovering this business opportunity, he turned to wholesale a bunch of suits from the Qijiang market in Hangzhou to set up a stall, but was stopped at the subway entrance and ended up selling none. Later, Wang Ning sent this batch of suits back to Beijing, and it is said that they are still stored in his home today. Subsequently, Wang Ning opened two more stores at Hongqiao, which is quite rare for POP MART to have such a dense presence.

"We were all originally people outside the mainstream. Wang Ning is, and most early investors are too," commented an anonymous POP MART investor to 36Kr.

Over the past twenty years, China's VC and PE industries have evolved from nothing to what is now known as the "1-9 split" era, with funds exhibiting a "winner takes all" phenomenon that is typically seen in the internet industry. Behind most star projects, there are always those familiar fund names.

But POP MART is an exception. To this day, only He Yu and Tu Zheng hold board seats among all of POP MART's investments.

Tu Zheng feels deeply about this, saying, "We are not in that 'camp'." In fact, just before investing in POP MART in 2013, Tu Zheng also met with the Kuaidi team, and at that time, he had even agreed on a valuation, but later missed his last window to invest due to internal decision-making processes at the institution. "(Whether to invest or not) is completely different; it's not just about this case, but missing out on an era."

For Tu Zheng, POP MART is a "bloody path carved out." In 2019, after leaving GGV, he established his own fund: Fengqiao Capital, focusing on consumer sectors.

He Yu of Black Ant Capital also referred to his past self as a "founder without a background." However, after POP MART, Black Ant, which has also invested in projects like Jiangxiaobai, Heytea, and HARMAY, has become one of the most noteworthy new consumer institutions from 2019 to the present. This September, it completed fundraising for a new fund of $100 million and 1 billion yuan.

The earliest investor, Mai Gang, expressed to 36Kr, "There are too many circles in the investment world, with mutual pulling and investing. But POP MART has no circle." He has a saying similar to Wang Ning's: "Not raising money is a good thing; for Wang Ning, it means thinking seriously about which project is the most worthwhile and valuable."

Let's go back to the night of August 10, 2012. Halfway through drinking with Mai Gang, Wang Ning stepped out of the bar to make a phone call, excitedly telling his father, "Your son is a millionaire today!"

That year, he was 25 years old.

Author of this article: Liu Jing, Source: 36Kr, Original title: "Five Years Ago, We Had an Unpublished Interview with Wang Ning of POP MART"

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