Trendy toys only have attractive appearances, speakers are overly utilitarian, and online software lacks human warmth: Hanko Smart uses AI-powered zodiac companion trendy toys to provide office workers with a "low-burden emotional outlet"
Zhuhai Hanke Intelligent Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hanke Intelligence") has launched a Chinese zodiac AI companion trendy toy targeted at the adult market, and the project has officially kicked off its angel round of financing, with a target fundraising of RMB 4 million to 5 million. The raised funds will be used for mass production and delivery of products, cold start of the market and expansion of the core team.
At present, there is a clear segmentation in the desktop scenarios of young office workers in first- and second-tier cities: static trendy toy ornaments focus on appearance but lack interactive capabilities, smart speakers are more tool-oriented, and online companion software supports conversations but cannot bring the tactile sensation and emotional warmth brought by physical carriers. Aiming at this market gap, Hanke Intelligence enters the cross track of AI emotional hardware and the trendy toy emotional economy, and develops adult-oriented Chinese zodiac AI companion trendy toys.
Team from leading enterprises enters the track and seizes the window of Chinese zodiac gift-giving cycle
The project was founded by CEO Wang Panjun, who has years of experience in user product R&D for leading tech companies including Baidu and ByteDance. During his long-term work, he observed that contemporary young office workers have the demand for low-burden emotional companionship, but there are few physical companion products specially designed for adults on the market. As the landing cost of large models on consumer hardware continues to decline, coupled with the traffic window of Chinese zodiac gift-giving for the 2027 Lunar Year of the Goat, the team devoted themselves to the project full-time at the end of June this year, focusing on the niche category of adult desktop companionship.
The core team of the project all comes from leading Internet enterprises such as Baidu and ByteDance, covering the whole chain of product R&D, algorithm, hardware and marketing, and the majority of the members are post-1995 generation. Among them, CEO Wang Panjun is a former senior R&D engineer of Baidu and ByteDance, with practical experience in cultural and creative entrepreneurship, and has long been deeply engaged in user products and the landing of AI technology. Huang Xinting, the head of marketing, holds double master's degrees from Jinan University and the National University of Singapore, with 8 years of brand marketing experience in listed companies at home and abroad. She has led multiple sales projects ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yuan, and is good at building consumer brands from 0 to 1 and deploying overseas markets. The rest of the core members also have backgrounds from leading tech companies and well-known universities, and form complementary advantages in client-side R&D, AI algorithms, embedded hardware and other directions.
Integrate trendy toys and AI with integrated software and hardware, aim at mass production and delivery for the Spring Festival schedule
At present, the main development of the product's software and hardware has been completed, the joint debugging of the whole machine is underway, and the appearance design and mold development are being carried out simultaneously. Software copyrights, invention patents and SRRC certifications are all in the application stage. At the supply chain level, AI supply chain enterprise Yuanqizhi takes strategic shares with technology + supply chain resources; the chip solution is jointly developed with EnginSense, and the 4G communication module is jointly developed with China Mobile. The team plans to realize mass production in December 2026 and complete the delivery of the first batch of products before the 2027 Spring Festival.
At the same time, covering the two process systems of electronic hardware and trendy toy plush products is the biggest challenge for the project at the present stage. On the hardware side, it is necessary to unify the interfaces of self-developed components, communication protocols and power consumption control; the suppliers of trendy toy processes are scattered with inconsistent standards, and the team needs to align the mass production nodes of the two supply chains. In response to this, the team adopts the strategy of "independent control of core paths and coordinated support from external suppliers", sets verification nodes for each business line, and controls the overall progress.
This Chinese zodiac AI trendy toy focuses on desktop physical form, AI multimodal interaction and closed-loop growth memory. Its core technologies include multi-point capacitive touch perception, edge-cloud collaborative emotional interaction engine, and integrated software and hardware memory growth system. Compared with similar products on the market, it avoids the track of children's smart toys and focuses on the companionship demands of adults; different from pure online companion software, it has physical tactile sensation; different from static trendy toys, it has the capabilities of continuous interaction and memory growth; compared with smart speakers, it is positioned as a low-disturbance emotional partner rather than a tool device. The core barrier of the project lies in the integration capability of AI software, embedded hardware and trendy toy crafts.
The first launch includes three limited-edition IP models for the Year of the Goat, each with an independent personality setting, with a pricing range of RMB 699 to RMB 1099. The core users are targeted at 18-35 year-old working women in first- and second-tier cities who are willing to pay for emotional value, while covering the scenarios of zodiac birth year gifts and holiday gifts. In terms of customer acquisition, the team plans to form a word-of-mouth cycle through content marketing on Xiaohongshu, conversion via crowdfunding and Douyin live streaming, user precipitation on apps, and secondary traffic brought by social sharing of purchase orders, focusing on retail sales and B-end gift channels during the Spring Festival peak.
Take hardware as the entry to build an IP ecosystem, and aim to break even in the first year
In terms of the track, the AI emotional companionship market is entering a period of rapid growth. According to industry data, the scale of China's AI emotional companionship market reached RMB 3.866 billion in 2025, and is expected to reach RMB 59.506 billion in 2028; China's Chinese zodiac gift market maintains a scale of hundreds of billions of yuan all year round, and the 2027 Year of the Goat provides natural traffic dividends for the cold start of the project. In terms of business goals, the team plans to run through the entire operation chain in the first year and strive to achieve break-even.
In terms of business model, the project adopts the idea of hardware drainage and long-term ecological monetization: hardware contributes most of the revenue in the first year, and its proportion will gradually decrease in the subsequent period; the proportion of IP peripheral products, membership services and business cooperation will gradually increase, to build a growth flywheel of "hardware as entry, membership for user retention, and peripheral products for repurchase".
At the present stage, the project is supported by the founder's own capital investment, the core team is fully committed and does not receive salaries before Round A, and is supported by the strategic shareholding of Yuanqizhi. This angel round of fundraising of RMB 4 million to 5 million will be mainly invested in mass production, market cold start and team expansion; the subsequent large-scale stock preparation and promotion plans will rely on sales proceeds for rolling operation, without continuous consumption of equity capital.
Wang Panjun told 36Kr that the adult companionship demand is not a pseudo-demand, but few teams are willing to settle down to develop physical companion products suitable for adults. "We don't want to make toys for one-time sale, but hope to create a desktop companion that can accompany users for several years, and provide users with a low-burden emotional outlet."
In the long run, relying on the advantage of the annual node of Chinese zodiac IP, after the first launch in the Year of the Goat, the project will continue to launch a full set of 12 Chinese zodiac AI companion trendy toys, build a complete adult emotional companionship IP ecosystem, and seize the leading position in the AI emotional hardware niche track.