Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Labubu swept the world, and the market value of POP MART of 340 billion Hong Kong dollars made founder Wang Ning the richest man in Henan.
A joke is brought up again:
Before POP MART's listing, investors' evaluation of Wang Ning was: mediocre education, never worked properly, spoke with a calm expression, no infectiousness, and the team had no elites. After POP MART's listing, investors' evaluation of Wang Ning was: Wang Ning has a calm personality, does not talk much, does not show his emotions, and has many excellent qualities of a "consumer entrepreneur".
What received the same treatment was Mai Gang, the angel investor of POP MART.
Before the rise of this trendy toy giant, Mai Gang ridiculed himself as an "alternative investor" who was "kicked out of the group chat" by the mainstream capital circle; and when the market value of POP MART soared, he was invited to the "altar" and transformed into a legendary figure in the investment world.
However, Mai Gang's legend is far more than just the trendy toy field.
What is little known is that Xu Mingxing, the founder of the global leading crypto trading platform OKX, is also an investor in POP MART, reaping thousands of times the return, and all of this is inseparable from Mai Gang.
Mai Gang is also Xu Mingxing's Bole, who founded and invested in his earliest entrepreneurial project, Dou Ding Wang, and later co-founded OKCoin.
Even Mai Gang is also the crypto introducer of He Yi, the co-founder of Binance.
In 2014, at a private gathering organized by Mai Gang, he introduced He Yi, who was still a program host at the time, to Xu Mingxing, which led to He Yi joining OKCoin. Subsequently, He Yi also introduced Zhao Changpeng (CZ), the founder of Binance, to join the team, thus opening the prelude to the global cryptocurrency exchange battle.
His investment map spans two seemingly unrelated fields, but in their respective tracks, they have nurtured giant companies that have changed the industry landscape. It can be said that Mai Gang not only achieved POP MART, but also changed Bitcoin to a certain extent.
Early Bitcoin Evangelist
"In 2013, I was invited out of the WeChat groups of two mainstream VC circles because of discussing Bitcoin. The members of the group are all highly educated people. I think my teaching method is very professional, but some people still think I am selling something. At that time, I felt very lost in my heart. After all, as social animals, everyone wants to be recognized.
This is the first time I have a feeling of being "abandoned" by the VC circle, and it is also the first time I have realized that there are mainstream and non-mainstream circles, as well as individual cognitive differences."
Mai Gang said this in an interview with "Home Office New Intelligence" in 2021.
In 2025, this article titled (Mai Gang: The Years I Was "Abandoned" by the VC Circle) swept the circle of friends again.
At this moment, POP MART's market value exceeds 340 billion Hong Kong dollars, an increase of more than 20,000 times compared to Mai Gang's angel investment valuation (10 million yuan).
At this moment, the price of Bitcoin exceeds $100,000, an increase of more than 5,000 times compared to the price of $20 at the beginning of 2013.
Mai Gang never shies away from his identity - the earliest investor in China's investment community and a strong popularizer of Bitcoin knowledge.
In 2013, when most people did not know or still regarded Bitcoin as a financial bubble, he spared no effort to promote Bitcoin knowledge and his own understanding throughout the country.
Shen Tu Qingchun, an OG in the crypto industry, recalled that he met the famous angel investor Mai Gang in July 2013 and inadvertently talked about Bitcoin.
"Mai Gang studied finance. His views on Bitcoin are very accurate and forward-looking. For example, the national reserve currency was what Mai Gang said at the time, and it has now become a reality. I have to say that Mai Gang is a very powerful Bitcoin advocate. He greatly strengthened my idea of working in Bitcoin. He said that he invested in OKCoin and also introduced me to Xu Mingxing. I immediately withdrew all the funds from the stock market and purchased 800 Bitcoins from OKCoin at a price of $90 at the time."
In Mai Gang's view, Bitcoin can be explained clearly in two sentences: First, Bitcoin is a perfect currency attribute that mathematicians, geeks, and network scientists use distributed algorithms to simulate; Second, this attribute is maintained by the distributed and extremely powerful computing power of computers.
He divides the monetary form of human society into three types: one is the monetary system represented by precious metal gold, and the other is the credit currency supported by government credit. The emergence of Bitcoin has allowed mankind to enter the third monetary era. He emphasized that these three monetary forms will coexist for a long time, just as the Internet has not completely replaced fax machines and telephones after its emergence.
Regarding Bitcoin, Mai Gang put forward a prediction in 2014: Bitcoin will become a tool for great power game.
"I am not an anarchist, nor am I advocating that we use Bitcoin today instead of RMB. But I can tell you that in the future, in the short term 10 years, in the long term 30 years, the United States will rebuild a global monetary system, and in this global monetary system, the United States is likely to link the US dollar with a new series of assets, including virtual currencies represented by Bitcoin. Before doing this, the United States only needs to do one thing, which is to gain a voice in the field of Bitcoin. This voice may be computing power, may be reserves, or may be pricing power. Why does the United States have an advantage in doing this? Because the United States has Wall Street, which is the elite of the global elite."
Such expressions may not seem unfamiliar now, but please note that this statement came from Mai Gang's speech in 2014. He actively popularized Bitcoin, hoping that Chinese entrepreneurs, Chinese companies, and ordinary Chinese people could gain a voice in the Bitcoin field.
"I hope that everyone, including government agencies, should realize the greatness and complexity of this Bitcoin game, which is truly related to our future generations. The Americans used the power of the US dollar in the last century to obtain the minting rights of the US dollar, allowing the world to work for him. If the Americans use decades to obtain the voice of Bitcoin, they will continue to let the world work for him."
Perhaps it is out of this understanding that Mai Gang chose to invest and incubate OKCoin when it was established in 2013.
Xu Mingxing and Mai Gang met as early as 2011. At that time, Xu Mingxing was the CTO of Dou Ding Wang, and Mai Gang was the angel investor of Dou Ding Wang.
Mai Gang and his partner, Tim Draper, the founder of DFJ in the United States, jointly invested 5 million yuan in Xu Mingxing as angel investors. Tim Draper is a famous investor in the United States who invested in Baidu and Tesla in the early days.
During the Spring Festival in 2014, Mai Gang found He Yi, who was still a TV host at the time, and asked her to post OKCoin's Bitcoin red envelopes in her circle of friends, and He Yi readily agreed.
The wheel of fate began to turn from this moment, which not only opened the door to the world of Bitcoin for He Yi, but also changed the history of the crypto world.
After the Spring Festival, Mai Gang and Xu Mingxing, the founder of OKcoin, jointly organized a "thank you dinner", inviting all the people who helped send red envelopes to gather together. In this way, He Yi and Xu Mingxing met.
Xu Mingxing has a technical background, and He Yi is good at marketing. At a party, Mai Gang suddenly said: "Hey, Mingxing, isn't your company looking for someone to do marketing? Isn't this just right?"
The second week after the end, He Yi joined OKcoin as the vice president, responsible for brand building and marketing promotion. He Yi used past TV media resources to join (Only You) BOSS group to promote OKcoin, and also planned OKcoin's appearance in Times Square in New York. The now commonly used method of attracting KOL promotion is also a marketing method that He Yi often used ten years ago.
In addition, He Yi also poached Zhao Changpeng, who used to work at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, to OKcoin as CTO.
Mai Gang's series of seemingly casual introductions and connections ultimately rewrote the competitive landscape of the entire cryptocurrency exchange.
Subsequently, Zhao Changpeng left OKCoin and founded Binance, and He Yi also joined him, jointly building Binance into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and OKCoin has also become the current global leading trading platform OKX.
The first investor of POP MART
Half a year before POP MART's Hong Kong stock listing in June 2020, Mai Gang published an article on the Chuangye Factory's official account - (The story of POP MART: from 10 million to 100 billion), of which 10 million was the valuation of Mai Gang's angel round investment in POP MART, and 100 billion was Mai Gang's expectation for POP MART at that time.
"One hundred billion is a number and also a goal. I believe that the POP MART team led by Wang Ning has the opportunity to challenge this goal and become an international company."
As a result, POP MART broke through 100 billion market value on the day of its listing. Now, 5 years after its listing, POP MART's market value has exceeded 300 billion, ranking among the star companies in Hong Kong stocks.
Going back to 2012, POP MART was just a small company nestled in a simple residential house in Beijing. In May of that year, founder Wang Ning sent an email to Mai Gang, but it quietly lay in the other party's mailbox for three months before being discovered.
This accidental discovery has achieved a precious investment relationship.
In August 2012, 25-year-old Wang Ning met Mai Gang for the first time. The young Wang Ning was wearing a pair of trendy brand shorts that had not yet been launched in China at that time. This detail made Mai Gang keenly aware of his unique sense of smell for trends. From the first meeting to signing the investment, the whole process only took a short five days.
On August 10, 2012, Mai Gang paid the first investment payment, totaling 2 million yuan, becoming POP MART's first angel investor.
According to 36kr reports, after signing the investment agreement, the two went to a bar in Wudaokou. In the midst of a noisy sound, Wang Ning, who was always "very peaceful", suddenly raised his voice a little: "Brother Mai, if you invest in me today, if I am Jay Chou, you are Wu Zongxian."
Later, when talking about the reasons for the investment, Mai Gang said that what really touched him was the characteristics shown by Wang Ning: "Calm, calm, clean and not fooling".
At that time, most investors and entrepreneurs were focusing on e-commerce, and believed that the offline retail industry was a counter-trend environment. Mai Gang and Wang Ning firmly believed that there was still a huge opportunity in the offline retail market, especially those trendy products with a sense of design and that could touch people's emotions.
For Wang Ning, the significance of this investment is extraordinary. After receiving the investment, he immediately called his father: "Dad, from today onwards, your child is a multi-millionaire, because the value of the shares I hold is 10 million."
As an investor who is relatively stingy with praise, Mai Gang made a high evaluation of Wang Ning in his circle of friends one year after the investment, "Young and promising, ambitious, China's future retail industry must have his place".
However, apart from Mai Gang, not many people in the capital market really favored Wang Ning and POP MART.
Wang Ning has met almost all the investors and FAs, not only visited financial institutions, but even met with industrial capital such as Enlight Media and Alpha Animation, but every time he went happily and returned disappointed.
A typical example is the fund under Hunan Satellite TV. After a long period of due diligence, it still did not invest. At the last meeting, it even said to Wang Ning: "How could such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity fall on you?"
The continuous setbacks in financing also led to POP MART's long-term financial tension. At one time, the company's account had less than 1 million yuan left, and even paying wages became a problem.
"The financing information circulating online is not accurate. Many of the numbers are equity transfers between shareholders after the company developed smoothly in the later stage, and are not the company's financing. The total amount of funds raised from outside during the company's development is actually very small. In the early stage of POP MART's development, financing was very difficult. Basically, most of the well-known investment institutions have seen this case, and I don't know what the reason is for not investing."
Mai Gang later recalled that he could empathize with the torment Wang Ning had in his heart during the setbacks in financing, but when faced with difficulties, he could still feel Wang Ning's inner confidence and conviction in the company's value.
On the night of POP MART's listing in 2020, an article titled (Behind POP MART's market value exceeding 100 billion: A collective failure of China's large funds) swept the entire venture capital circle, which is also a kind of emotional venting and attitude expression.
This scene is like an inspirational plot in a fantasy fairy tale novel - the male protagonist who was once regarded as a "waste" finally made a blockbuster, making all those who once looked down on him ashamed.
In Mai Gang's view, Wang Ning's repeated setbacks in financing may be a very important tempering in the development process of POP MART. Without this tempering, POP MART may not be able to get to where it is today.
"First, because there is no financing, POP MART is very cautious when spending every penny; second, the company has been looking for breakthroughs, forcing the founder to constantly think."
Mai Gang has always been an anti-trend person. He believes that POP MART has become a myth of creating a trend (pioneering the industry) because it has not obtained large-scale financing, has basically not been exposed to the media too much, and has never become a trend enterprise.
Mai Gang's Person
Seeing this, perhaps you will be more curious about what kind of person Mai Gang is, and why the "heterogeneous" in the eyes of mainstream VCs can get such great results as POP MART, Bitcoin, and OKCoin at the same time?
In 1996, after graduating from Renmin University of China, Mai Gang devoted himself to the venture capital industry and was one of the earliest people in China to engage in venture capital.
In 2001, he went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to pursue an MBA, during which he won the first place in the University of California Entrepreneurship Competition and the fifth place in the National University Entrepreneurship Competition. During his time in the United States, he met his "Wu Zongxian" and became acquainted with Silicon Valley venture capital godfather Tim Draper, thus entering the Silicon Valley venture capital circle.
"Tim Draper is my mentor, my former boss, and my earliest angel investor. I am very grateful to him for cultivating me and investing in my company back then."
In 2005, he co-founded VenturesLab with Tim Draper, which is one of the earliest entrepreneurial incubators in China.
Unlike mainstream VCs, Mai Gang chose an "alternative" investment path.
He has never raised funds from the outside world, and always insists on investing with his own funds. In his opinion, there is a "scale curse" in the current venture capital industry - many large funds adopt the "sprinkling money mode" in order to improve the hit rate of investment, which often reduces the return on investment for LPs. The best operating model for the venture capital industry is a small team "workshop-style" approach - a leader leads three or five elite soldiers, deeply cultivates, and strives to have three or five of the twenty projects that can run out.
He is cautious about the trend. He believes that entrepreneurs and investors should pay more attention to the essence of the opportunity, rather than blindly chasing it. He summarized three verification "formulas" to judge the project:
What problem does your company solve?
Who are your competitors?
Why will you win?
Based on rich entrepreneurial and investment experience, Mai Gang has divided Internet entrepreneurship into models and proposed the famous "mouse and cement theory".
The first is the "mouse mode", which is a pure Internet mode. The representative is the early search engine, community website, etc. The characteristic is that entrepreneurs can start business mainly through computers;
The second type is the "mouse plus cement mode", such as 58.com and Qunar.com. These companies obtain traffic through the Internet and then convert the traffic into the commercial value of traditional industries;
The third type is the "cement plus mouse mode", typical representatives such as Xiaomi and Huang Taiji. These companies are essentially traditional industries, but they fully use Internet characteristics for innovation.
Perhaps you think that Mai Gang, who did VC after graduating from university, is more of a theorist and lacks entrepreneurial experience, but he has another identity - a serial entrepreneur.
In 1999, Mai Gang invested in E-De Fangzhou, which won the first place in the China College Student Entrepreneurship Competition that year, during the Pudong Science and Technology Innovation period. It was precisely because of this project that Mai Gang made many good connections and started a continuous entrepreneurship journey with many entrepreneurs.
In 2003, Mai Gang co-founded Eyou with Jack Ma, one of the founders of E-De Fangzhou, and served as CEO. The company received angel investment from Silicon Valley bigwig Tim Draper, Japanese tycoon Hikari Tsushin Chairman, etc., and was later acquired by French listed company Meetic.
In 2005, Mai Gang invested as an angel in Chinese Online founded by Tong Zhilei, one of the founders of E-De Fangzhou. In January 2015, the company was successfully listed on the A-share ChiNext.
In 2006, Mai Gang and Lu Jun, one of the founders of E-De Fangzhou, co-founded Tongka, which later became the largest O2O customer relationship software company in China, and was later acquired by Tencent. In 2007, Mai Gang also co-founded Dou Ding Wang, once the world's largest Chinese document sharing website, with Jonathan Lin, who had interned at Eyou.
In 2010, he and Deng Yu, another founder of Tongka, jointly invested and founded Taijie, the largest smart TV content aggregation service provider in China.
In 2013, he co-founded the Bitcoin trading platform - OKCoin with Xu Mingxing, CTO of Dou Ding Wang.
The seemingly magical entrepreneurial experience actually has a clear clue behind it: "Treat others well and make good connections."
"Life is the continuation of the entire relationship between you and your friends around you, so treat friends and others well in order to achieve yourself. Of course, you must know people, and making bad people will harm yourself. I think whether it is entrepreneurship or investment, in the end you will find that what is returned to you, I think is actually your character, or the amplification effect of your character," Mai Gang once said.
But, what moved me the most was a detail.
20 years ago, when Mai Gang founded Chuangye Factory, he designed the Logo himself, built the website, and wrote this passage on the company's official website: Perhaps your lifelong goal is to start a successful business, but in the end what is left on your epitaph is "kind father (mother)", "life's beloved partner", "generous friend", rather than "great CEO". You will find that what you can't take away is fame and wealth, and what remains is emotion and memories.
Today, this passage is still on the homepage.
