Gaming / Entertainment / IPUS
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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Bloks: From Children's Building Block OEM to Ultramar & Transformers Licensing, Paving the Way to a Hong Kong IPO
Founded: Zhu Weisong · Bloks Group Limited (HK: 00325)
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryGaming / Entertainment / IP
RegionChina
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
Zhu Weisong started out in gaming in his early years. The company's predecessors focused on children's smart toys and Grape Technology, initially attempting to build a domestic block brand of its own. However, facing LEGO's absolute mindshare dominance in construction blocks, the original block route failed to gain traction in the market for years. Realizing that Chinese children and pan-anime fans actually wanted the characters themselves, the team shifted to character-building toys, betting on licensed IPs combined with high cost-performance pricing—changing blocks from building architecture to assembling action figures, thereby bypassing LEGO's moat.
Milestones
2014
Inception Failure
The company started with children's smart toys and its own block brand, attempting to directly benchmark against LEGO. However, after years of investment, the self-branded blocks failed to gain market traction, and self-developed IPs lacked brand recognition. Combined with industry suppression by LEGO's strong consumer mindshare, the company's revenue hovered at low levels for a long time, laying the groundwork for four consecutive years of losses later on.
2019
Transformation Turning Point
The company abandoned the purely self-built IP route and successively signed top-tier IP licenses such as Ultraman, restructuring its products into character-building toys. The main price band was squeezed down to blind boxes and small figure boxes ranging from 9.9 RMB to 49 RMB, and the channel strategy was changed to a combination of offline distribution and e-commerce. Since then, the revenue structure has completely changed, with Ultraman becoming the absolute revenue pillar as a single IP.
2023
Expansion Failure
The company recorded losses for four consecutive years. The prospectus showed that revenue grew from approximately 330 million RMB to about 880 million RMB between 2021 and 2023, but adjusted operations remained in a loss-making state. The market continuously questioned the model of trading IP for growth, and the fact that the Ultraman license only had about three years of validity remaining became the biggest risk point intensively probed by the media.
2024
Validation PMF
In 2024, the company's revenue surged significantly, with character-building toys selling over 200 million units. Ultraman, Transformers, Bloks' proprietary IPs, and subsequently signed licenses like Kamen Rider formed an IP matrix, extending the product line from children to all-age collectors, providing a sufficiently attractive growth story for the IPO submission.
2025
Listing Turning Point
Bloks was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. During the IPO phase, the public offering tranche was oversubscribed by more than 6,000 times, making it the hottest IPO at the start of 2025. In the early stages of listing, its market capitalization exceeded HKD 25 billion, and the 'China's LEGO' label was fully priced in by the capital market.
2025
Realization Growth
In the first half of 2025, the company's revenue reached approximately 1.7 billion RMB, turning a profit after four consecutive years of losses with a net profit of nearly 300 million RMB. Among them, overseas revenue skyrocketed by about 228% year-over-year, with 9.9 RMB small-box products snapping up overseas markets. Full-year profits exceeded 600 million RMB, carving out a low-price, high-turnover path dubbed by the market as the 'Mixue style'.
2026
Return Turning Point
Following the listing, the share price pulled back by about 70% from its peak, and the market began to re-price its IP licensing concentration and renewal risks. With the expiration issue of the Ultraman license unresolved, the company was forced to aggressively sign more IPs while pushing forward with overseas expansion and adult collection lines. The valuation logic shifted from sentiment-driven trading to testing license renewals and the second growth curve of self-developed IPs.
Turning Points
- Abandoning the self-built block route that benchmarked against LEGO and fully pivoting to licensed IP building figures became the first major watershed in the company's destiny.
- Compressing the core pricing down to blind box small sets starting at 9.9 RMB made Ultraman figures a high-frequency consumer product affordable with elementary school students' pocket money.
- The listing in January 2025 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with over 6,000x subscription monetized the 'China's LEGO' narrative all at once.
- The 228% surge in overseas revenue in 2025 proved that the low-cost building figure model is equally viable in overseas markets.
Failures & Pitfalls
- Early self-built block brands failed to gain market traction for years, yielding almost nothing against LEGO's mindshare suppression, forcing a comprehensive pivot.
- Four consecutive years of losses from 2021 to 2023, where licensing fees and channel expansion devoured profits, leaving it labeled as burning cash for growth right before the IPO.
- The Ultraman license faced expiration risks, and the problem of the company's revenue being heavily dependent on a single IP was repeatedly scrutinized before and after the listing.
- Post-listing share price pulled back by about 70% as the capital market voted with its feet, proving that borrowed IPs could not sustain the initial optimistic valuation.
关键成功要素
- Bypassing LEGO's mindshare by carving out a differentiated category using building figures rather than building architecture; asymmetric competition was the prerequisite for survival.
- Leveraging top-tier IPs to drive the market and using low-cost blind box formats to amplify repeat purchases were the core formulas for transforming from losses to over 600 million RMB in profit within four years.
- Diluting single-license dependency through an IP matrix of Ultraman, Transformers, Kamen Rider, and others prior to the listing, buying time for renewal risks.
- Pushing into overseas markets and adult collection lines, turning a one-off children's business into a stratified demographic business to hedge against the ceiling of license expiration.
Lessons
- If you cannot beat self-built IPs, start with top-tier licenses to survive first before talking about independent research and development—a pragmatic path for Chinese consumer brands facing giant mindshare.
- Low-priced single items are not compromises but weapons; the 9.9 RMB pricing logic turns toys from low-frequency gifts into high-frequency repeat-purchase items.
- The biggest highlight in a prospectus is often the biggest risk; a structure where a single IP drives the vast majority of revenue will sooner or later be re-priced by the market.
- Listing is the end of narratives, not the end of business. After an over-6,000x subscription, the real test questions are license renewals and the second curve.
Core Data
- 2023 Revenue：Approx. 880 million RMB (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- H1 2025 Revenue：Approx. 1.7 billion RMB (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- H1 2025 Net Profit：Approx. 270 million RMB (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- FY 2025 Full-Year Profit：Exceeding 600 million RMB (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- H1 2025 Overseas Revenue YoY Growth：Approx. 228% (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- Initial Market Cap Post-Listing：Exceeding HKD 25 billion (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- Max Share Price Drawdown Post-Listing：Approx. 70% (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- Core Product Starting Price：Starting from 9.9 RMB (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
- Public Offering Subscription Multiple：Exceeding 6,000x (publicly available data sources, independent review unverified)
Competitors / Peers
Bloks' benchmark is Denmark's LEGO, which built a global moat relying on its proprietary system blocks and family mindshare, characterized by low licensed IP content and persistently high gross margins. Direct domestic competitors include 52TOYS, which uses trendy domestic licenses for building toys and action figures, and Pop Mart, which turned emotional consumption into a tens-of-billions-dollar market capitalization using blind boxes and proprietary IPs; neither centers on building structures, yet they are direct rivals in the collectible toy mindset. In addition, domestic brands like Sembo Block engage in head-to-head competition by using licensed IPs to drive down prices. Bloks temporarily holds an advantage relying on low-priced blind boxes and Ultraman mindshare, but once IP renewals expire, any of them could snatch the same piece of the cake.
Sources