NeObage plans to raise 5 million yuan in its angel round of financing, offering 10% of the company's equity.

When Gen Z's demand for emotional value collides with the functional bottlenecks of traditional anime and manga peripheral products, a new product that redefines dimension wearable devices is disrupting the pan-anime consumer market. Recently, NeObage, the first closed-loop dimension emotional wearable device in China, has been officially developed and launched to the market. With the innovative form of "electronic badge", it turns static dimension IPs into interactive, companionable pocket friends, filling the market gap in the dimension emotional wearable track. The project originated from the founding team's visit to a comic exhibition in 2024. When visiting the exhibition, core team members found that a large number of anime enthusiasts are keen to collect traditional pin peripherals such as "goods" and "badges", but ordinary badges only have fixed patterns, which can only meet the needs of collection and outfit display, and cannot satisfy Gen Z's core demand for emotional connection with IP characters. Against the market backdrop that the number of pan-anime users in China has exceeded 400 million, and the core Gen Z group is willing to pay a high premium for circle identity and emotional companionship, the founding team officially launched the NeObage project in January 2025, determined to "vitalize" static dimension IPs and provide continuous positive emotional value for enthusiasts.

From conception to product launch, the project has built an original composite team covering hardware R&D, AI algorithm, content creation and market operation. Core member Cai Yifan graduated from the University of Oregon, with many years of experience in international trade and market operation, responsible for the commercial implementation of the project and overseas market layout; core member Zhang Haopeng graduated from Guangxi Normal University, with 12 years of experience in technology product R&D, who has been deeply engaged in the stabilizer and drone industry, and is in charge of overall planning of product R&D and team management throughout the whole process. During the R&D process, the team encountered the core problem that the user interaction experience did not meet expectations, and is currently carrying out targeted optimization and upgrading on the APP end; the biggest challenge facing the project at present is product awareness penetration, and the team is gradually expanding the market through circle content operation.

As the pioneer of global dimension emotional wearables, NeObage has built three core barriers that are difficult to replicate. At the product level, it adopts a 1.75-inch round OLED screen, supports dual form switching between magnetic pin and necklace, is light and unnoticeable to adapt to all-scenario outfits, which not only meets the personalized outfit expression needs of anime users, but also has natural circle communication attributes; at the AI level, a lightweight end-side interaction engine is customized for dimension scenarios, which gets rid of the templated interaction of general large models. All AI personas are 100% original, with independent worldviews, personalities and storylines, supporting daily chat, emotional counseling and long-term nurturing, which can continuously provide positive emotional value for users; at the ecological level, a dedicated NeObage APP is equipped to build a vertical ACG private domain ecosystem, supporting online dynamic posting, like-minded people matching, and can also realize offline nearby user encounter reminders, opening up the O2O social link and effectively improving the user life cycle value.

Relying on the huge base of more than 400 million pan-anime users in China, the dimension emotional wearable track that NeObage enters is an untapped structural blue ocean. At present, the traditional smart wearable market has long fallen into red-hot involution, with products concentrated on smart watches and bands, serious homogenization, competition focused on hardware parameters, and price wars constantly squeezing gross profit. Moreover, these products generally only have tool attributes, lack emotional value, and have extremely low user stickiness; while there are no leading players in the dimension emotional wearable track, there is a clear structural gap, and first-mover brands can quickly establish barriers in content, users and channels, with sufficient growth space.

At present, NeObage has completed R&D and been officially launched on the market. The project adopts a layered business model of "hardware sales + value-added services + platform ecology": in the initial stage, it will achieve profitability through the sales of smart badge hardware. After the user scale grows in the future, it will open a UGC platform to support users to independently create and publish IP images, launch a membership system, and put more original IP content for users to use. In the long run, it can also expand derivative services such as IP co-branded peripherals, club procurement, and offline channels at comic exhibitions. At this stage, the project is promoting angel round financing, planning to raise 5 million yuan, transfer 10% equity, with a post-investment valuation of 50 million yuan. The raised funds will be mainly used for core technology and dimension content R&D, domestic and overseas brand market expansion, hardware iteration and supply chain upgrading, and core team expansion.

According to the project plan, within the next 12 months, the team will complete the domestic crowdfunding implementation, verify market data, start preparation for overseas crowdfunding at the same time, and build domestic private domain communities; within 1 to 3 years, it will complete the volume release of overseas crowdfunding, build stable cross-border sales channels, iterate the product matrix, implement head IP co-branding, and cover offline channels such as comic exhibitions; within 3 to 5 years, the goal is to become the leading brand in the global dimension emotional wearable track, build a complete dimension consumption ecosystem, and connect to the capitalization path.

As the first mature dimension AI smart badge in China, NeObage comes from the needs of the circle. Relying on the precise judgment of the original anime team, it breaks the pain point of traditional hardware brands that "outsiders make circle products", provides Gen Z with a new choice that combines outfit expression, emotional companionship and circle socialization, and also opens up a brand new incremental track for the pan-anime consumer market. The product concept of "pocket dimension, accompanied by AI" is redefining the value boundary of anime peripheral products.