High-end portable artifacts have been defined by Western brands for decades. Silversmith Village applies traditional lacquer, gold and silver inlay, and metal chasing techniques to make pocket-sized fire tools, aiming to build a luxury brand that carries the essence of Eastern culture and art.
SILVIL is seeking RMB 8 million in financing, and the funds will be mainly allocated to product and craftsmanship R&D, supply chain and working capital, as well as brand content and curated channels.
The operating entity of SILVIL is Guizhou Yinjiangcun Trading Co., Ltd., which was founded in Bozhou, Zunyi, Guizhou in 2024. The brand positions itself as a Chinese oriental cultural and artistic luxury brand, and its first entry point is artistic fire tools: integrating intangible cultural heritage crafts such as grand lacquer, mother-of-pearl inlay, gold and silver filigree inlay, chiseling, and enamel into fire tools, paired with original design and precision manufacturing.
High-end portable artifacts with few Chinese brands in the market
The starting point of the SILVIL team is straightforward. China is rich in cultural and craft resources, but the high-end portable artifact sector has long been defined by Western brands, and there are very few brands that can transform traditional culture into contemporary high-end artifacts and sustain long-term operation.
From the perspective of existing players in the market, international luxury brands have limited expression of oriental culture, and fire tools are rarely their core competence. Most traditional brands that focus on fire tools develop around Western culture or functional attributes, with the oriental craft system being their short board. Museums and mass cultural and creative products are closer to oriental themes, but they follow the path of large-scale production and authorization, which cannot create sufficient sense of scarcity and can hardly carry the expression of personal identity. The most authentic handcraft entities are independent craft studios, whose problems lie in the instability of brand building, channel layout, product delivery and after-sales service.
The demand side is also changing. According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics cited in SILVIL's business plan, the national operating income of cultural and related industries reached RMB 20.8254 trillion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%, among which creative design services grew by 13.2%. This is the overall scale of the entire cultural industry, which does not equal the market that this brand can serve. The business plan also quotes the conclusion of Bain's 2025 China Luxury Market Study: Consumers are becoming more rational, and attach greater importance to quality, scarcity, practicality and innovation. The SILVIL team therefore judges that consumers will not pay for the "national trend" label in the long run, and what they are truly willing to pay continuously for is authentic quality, original design, scarcity logic, cultural identity and long-term services.
Starting from fire tools, promoting three core series
SILVIL has planned a total of five product lines. The current focus is on SILVIL FIRE and SILVIL GUARDIAN. The former develops artistic fire tools and collectible fire tools, while the latter creates portable guardian themes such as twelve patron saints, door gods and mythical beasts. SILVIL MASTERPIECE is the key construction direction, which carries the splendid grand lacquer, complex integrated crafts and limited-edition works. The oriental jewelry line SILVIL JEWELRY is still in the verification and expansion stage, and EDC, stationery, home art and high-end gifting are classified into SILVIL LIFE, which belongs to the medium and long-term layout.
Products are further divided into three tiers: ESSENCE, HERITAGE and MASTERPIECE. ESSENCE covers the entry-level products, HERITAGE focuses on scale and cultural recognition, and MASTERPIECE supports the craft height and anchors the entire price system.
Three series are actually used to capture the market. The splendid luster of grand lacquer comes from layers of coating and repeated grinding. The handcraft and the property of lacquer determine that each work has individual differences, so each piece is equipped with a limited number, a work certificate and a craft file. The Twelve Patron Saints series links zodiac signs and life destiny culture with personal identity, and is expanding to categories such as portable handpieces and pendants. The Door God series draws materials from Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong, and a single work comprehensively adopts gold and silver filigree inlay, chiseling, enamel, metal coloring, inlaying and precision structures. It is introduced that this is the series with the most sufficient international communication evidence of the brand at present.
The difficulty lies in the size. The fire tool is only as small as a square inch, and the opening and closing structure, edge, inlay, texture and durability must be all solved on it, so that the artwork can be truly used in daily life. After the products are sold, SILVIL also plans to turn a one-time transaction into a long-term collection relationship through product numbers, certificates, craft files, maintenance and restoration, and member relationship operation.
Self-operated gross margin reaches 47.45%, while wholesale gross margin is only 11.36%
The target users of SILVIL are mainly high-quality male consumers aged 30 to 55, fire tool and EDC collectors, cultural identity-oriented consumers, business owners and gifting decision-makers, as well as overseas oriental aesthetics audiences. The revenue plan comes from direct retail, limited-edition collection, corporate gifting, curated channels, co-branding authorization and long-term category expansion.
The division of labor on channels is clear. Douyin and WeChat Video Account are used to verify content and complete transactions, Xiaohongshu is responsible for aesthetics and word-of-mouth communication, official website members and private domain traffic are used to precipitate users and drive repurchase, and selected offline channels allow users to experience the products in person and build trust. The team emphasizes that it will not carry out indiscriminate distribution of goods.
The following operating data is from the company's internal records and has not been audited. From July 2025 to June 2026, SILVIL achieved a revenue of RMB 3.1876 million, with 6,727 orders and a comprehensive gross margin of 37.7%. Self-operated revenue accounts for 73.1%, with a self-operated gross margin of 47.45%. In the same period, the operating profit was RMB 255,200, and the operating cash flow was RMB 288,100.
The business plan does not avoid problems either. The gross margin of the agency/wholesale business is only 11.36%, which is significantly lower than that of self-operation, and the revenue in the first half of 2026 decreased by 6.9% compared with the second half of 2025. SILVIL said that in the next stage, it will increase the proportion of high-craft products, full-price direct sales and collection services, instead of expanding the low-margin wholesale scale. According to the snapshot as of July 16, 2026, its Douyin store has a total of 111 product records, covering 84 named cultural themes.
In terms of brand assets, the "Yinjiangcun" word trademark, graphic trademark and "SILVIL" English trademark have all completed the registration of Class 34, and have been transferred to the name of the trading company. The Door-God work won the Silver Award of 2025 MUSE Design Awards (in the category of Product Design – Energy Products & Devices), and the works related to Door Gods Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong have also obtained copyright documents.
The founder Guang Ge (Pawo) graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2003. He founded a space design company in his early years, and switched to selling lighters of foreign brands in 2015, winning the sales championship for many times. He is currently responsible for brand strategy and artistic direction. Xu Guo, the brand CPO, has 10 years of experience in media communication and 7 years of experience in the lighter industry. Zhu Rongyao, the BD director, has accumulated nearly 20 years of experience in cross-industry entrepreneurship, branding and channels. Co-founder Shi Qi has long-term research on fire tool collection and player demands. Other members of the team are in charge of brand communication, supply chain and e-commerce operation, wood art creation, and there are also strategic consultants.
Back to this round of financing, the use of RMB 8 million is divided in detail: RMB 2.4 million for product and craftsmanship R&D, RMB 2 million for supply chain and working capital, RMB 1.6 million for brand content and curated channels, RMB 800,000 respectively for digital and AI systems, key talents and organization, and RMB 400,000 for compliance and risk reserve. The funds are planned to be invested in phases according to milestones, with the first phase of RMB 5 million and the subsequent phase of RMB 3 million. This plan is the suggested standard in the business plan, and the final result shall be subject to the due diligence and transaction documents.
Project contact: Li Rui