Former Alibaba entertainment executive founded children's toy brand StarPony to complete angel round and Pre-A round of financing

On June 26, the children's toy brand founded by the former Ali Entertainment executives was born in 2020, but after more than a year of development, the toy brand StarPony recently completed the angel round and Pre-A round of financing, with a total amount of tens of millions of yuan. Among them, the Pre-A round was invested by Hony Ventures, and the angel round was led by Xianfeng K2VC, followed by Lingdong. According to StarPony CEO Shi Cangjian, the funds will be mainly used for product development, operation and promotion. StarPony was established in August 2020 and focuses on steam toy products. Currently, 4 SKUs have been designed and developed, and 10 SKUs are expected to be launched throughout the year, and they will be sold to both domestic and foreign markets. The company's CEO Shi Cangjian served as the international general manager of the Alibaba mobile division and later as the president of Alibaba Games. He has many years of experience in entertainment, children's industry and global business. Shi Cangjian pointed out that most toys sold in foreign markets are produced in China. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the domestic market for children's toys and supplies reached 42.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, of which the export scale was 31.1 billion U.S. dollars. China's toy supply chain responds quickly and has advantages in new speed and cost-effectiveness. However, most toy exports are mainly based on the traditional sales model. Compared with 3C, clothing and other categories, the toy category has not yet appeared with high-quality overseas brands. In 2019, the number of children aged 0-14 in China reached 235 million, but the per capita consumption of toys was only US$23, which is 8% of that of the United States, and there is still a lot of room for growth. At the same time, in 2019, the sales and market share of major listed companies in the domestic toy industry are less than 6%, the market concentration is low, and branding is still in the blue ocean competition stage. Next, StarPony plans to use online e-commerce and social platforms as the main marketing positions, using Xiaohongshu, Douyin and other channels to deliver product concepts to target consumers. After forming a certain brand recognition, the products will be distributed to offline sales outlets through the offline channels of SmartCreation. In addition to its own brand, StarPony’s future plans include team product development and design capabilities, brand capabilities, user operation capabilities, and channel capabilities, and integrate the supply chain into other categories such as children’s products, using a model similar to the Xiaomi ecological chain. Realize category extension. In terms of the team, other core executive members have worked in companies such as Alibaba, UC, Xiaopeng, TT Voice, and Smart Creators, and have experience in product development, traffic operation, user operation, digitalization, and globalization. It is understood that StarPony is a children's pan-entertainment content producer, focusing on the development, design and production of animation derivatives, including the creation and authorization of animation IP. It mainly has toy brands such as 'Magic Spinning TopAt the same time, it operates Xiaoling Storytelling, which is a picture book story education brand. According to incomplete statistics, there have been 20 financings this year in the education field to which StarPony belongs. The toy shop was informed that Hony Capital, the investor in this round, was established in 2003 and is a member of Legend Holdings. It uses mergers and acquisitions as the main model, value creation and price realization as its core concepts, and is committed to gathering high-quality Chinese and foreign capital and boosting the development of the real economy.