Founded less than a year ago, AI trendy toy brand "IPTAG" has completed a ten-million-yuan level strategic financing.

By Li Xiaoxia

36Kr learned that IPTAG, a brand of AI trendy toys and high-end collectible cards, announced that it has completed a strategic financing of tens of millions of yuan, which was exclusively invested by Chengdu Ceyuan Gaodu Co-Creation Equity Investment Fund (referred to as "Ceyuan Gaodu Fund") under Ceyuan Capital of Gaotou Group.

The proceeds from this round of financing will be mainly used for AI technology R&D, expansion of high-quality IP cooperation, product experience upgrading, as well as the construction of channels and supply chains.

It is reported that the investor of this round, Chengdu Ceyuan Gaodu Fund, is the first cross-regional industrial fund jointly built by Chengdu High-tech Zone and Dujiangyan City. It was jointly initiated by Chengdu High-tech New Economy Venture Capital Co., Ltd. under Ceyuan Capital of Gaotou Group and Dujiangyan Xingshi Group, with a total size of 300 million yuan. The fund focuses on key sectors such as digital economy, cultural tourism and health care, low-altitude economy, advanced manufacturing, and biomedicine.

IPTAG is an AI trendy toy brand created by Chengdu Shachao Universe Cultural Technology Co., Ltd., which is mainly engaged in R&D, design, production and distribution of AI trendy toy products and other related businesses. Since its establishment in August 2025, IPTAG has taken IP as the core, built a diversified product matrix around cards, trendy toys and derivative peripherals, covering categories such as NFC cards, e-ink phone cases, and AI holographic agents, and gradually extended to AI companion scenarios.

In November 2025, IPTAG launched its self-developed APP, which integrates new product debut, card drawing, e-commerce, live streaming and AI interaction.

Different from traditional trendy toy brands, IPTAG's product idea is to use physical trendy toys as the entry point, trigger interaction with NFC chips, and provide experience through AI dialogue. Its high-end cards are built with NFC chips. When users touch them with their mobile phones, AI interaction will be activated — instead of redirecting to web pages or displaying information, users can experience role-based dialogues, audio content or AR experiences.

At present, the card series launched by IPTAG include the official Zhaoling Liujun collectible cards, the 2025 season commemorative cards of Shaanxi Union Football Club, the Art Cards of Zhu Zhu City, the Longhushan Cultural Tourism Cards, and the Mavericks Movie Cards, etc. In addition, the brand has independently developed the casemuse e-ink phone case, which supports dynamic image changing and social sharing, and belongs to NFC 3C peripheral products.

Taking the Longhushan series as an example, touching the high-level card can wake up the AI digital human named "Little Tianshi of Longhushan", with whom users can talk to get historical allusions of the scenic spot and travel suggestions. The card here is equivalent to a portable audio tour guide. The team uses this case to illustrate that what they make is not a printed product, but an entry point for content.

In terms of sales, a number of new products launched by IPTAG, such as the Zhaoling Liujun collectible cards and the Zhu Zhu City art collectible cards, have been sold out in a relatively short time, with outstanding market performance. The team said that this model is being replicated to more IPs.

From the perspective of market scale, the trendy toy industry is still in an upward channel.

According to public data, the domestic trendy toy market reached about 88 billion yuan in 2025, and is expected to exceed 110 billion yuan in 2026, with an annual growth rate of about 21%. Among them, the collectible card market was nearly 27.7 billion yuan in 2025, maintaining a growth rate of about 30%, and IP-based cards account for the main share.

As an emerging niche track, the overall scale of the domestic AI toy market reached about 29 billion yuan in 2025, and industry institutions predict that it will exceed 100 billion yuan by 2030.

However, while the market size is growing, obvious differentiation is taking place within the industry. The growth of ordinary cards is weak, while the growth rate of mid-to-high-end collectible cards and national-style cultural tourism IP cards is prominent. However, most of the cards on the market are still traditional printed cards, and the proportion of cards with NFC and AI interaction capabilities is very low, which is the blue ocean opportunity the team has spotted.

A more fundamental problem of traditional trendy toys is that the products are mainly static figures and ordinary collectible cards, which meet the needs of appearance appreciation, collection and social sharing of pictures. After users get the products, the products no longer generate new content, and the emotional value decays rapidly. The products are severely homogenized, and the IP track is highly competitive, with all players focusing on appearance design, but lacking long-term user stickiness.

At the same time, consumer groups and consumption motivations are also changing.

IPTAG's positioning is to fill this gap: it does not make pure physical cards, nor pure digital content, but uses physical trendy toys to deliver a sense of collection, and uses NFC and AI to deliver continuously updated digital experiences.

IPTAG targets Generation Z and consumers who recognize IP culture. The common feature of this group is that they are willing to pay for emotional consumption and hobbies. The number of pan-two-dimensional users in China has exceeded 500 million, and trendy toys are evolving from niche collections to mass emotional consumption. In short, the essence of trendy toys is emotional value.

In terms of industry trends, Generation Z users are no longer satisfied with static collectibles, and begin to hope that collectibles can generate continuous interaction, and their consumption motivation has shifted from "buying ornaments" to "buying companionship and experience". The integration of physical and digital has also become a clear direction. Pure digital collectible cards lack physical touch, while pure physical products lack digital extension capabilities, and the integration of virtual and real is becoming the mainstream.

Another notable change is that card trendy toys, as a lightweight IP carrier, have begun to integrate with industries such as cultural tourism, sports, art, and consumer brands, helping traditional industries achieve brand rejuvenation and digital reach. This market space is far larger than that of cards themselves.

The difference of IPTAG lies in its composite capabilities of IP operation, NFC hardware integration, AI development and physical supply chain, which enables it to get through the entire industrial chain.

At the same time, the costs of AI large models and NFC chips are both declining, which makes the "physical + digital" integration feasible and cost-controllable.

The team believes that the competition in the card trendy toy industry is shifting from "competing for IP resources" to "seeing who can retain users". In the short term, the competition focuses on IP resources and channel coverage; in the medium term, it focuses on product design and supply chain; in the long term, it focuses on the activity of user communities and the continuous IP operation capability.

IPTAG's current products are mainly in the card category, and its brand influence is mainly concentrated in the collectible card circle. The depth of AI interaction, user retention, the sustainability of IP cooperation, and the supply chain capability for subsequent category expansion are all the key directions for the team to focus on in the next stage.