Mr. Savage secured hot money during the cooling-off period of new consumption investment.

Fifteen years after its establishment, Mr. Savage introduced external capital for the first time.

According to Jiemian News, the freshly made ice cream brand Mr. Savage recently announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation with Black Ant Capital and completed its first round of financing, with the specific financing amount not disclosed by both parties.

On October 30, Mr. Savage and Black Ant Capital respectively confirmed the news to Jiemian News. Mr. Savage currently operates more than 1,800 stores, making it one of the leading domestic freshly made ice cream chain brands in China.

"Mr. Savage has entered a new stage," Cui Jianwei, founder of Mr. Savage, told Jiemian News. At present, the brand is steadily exploring overseas stores, with its first store opened in Hong Kong and 8 stores in Singapore. Localization and scaling up for overseas markets will be a long-term task.

The financing is expected to be used for supply chain construction, brand operation, store expansion and preliminary exploration of overseas store models. In the future, Mr. Savage and Black Ant Capital will carry out long-term cooperation focusing on brand building, industrial capability improvement and overseas expansion.

Image source: Mr. Savage's official Xiaohongshu account

01

Mr. Savage's expansion did not go smoothly from the very beginning. In 2011, founder Cui Jianwei opened his first ice cream store in Beijing, and in 2015, he launched the artisanal Italian ice cream brand "Savage Pastoral". For many years thereafter, the brand maintained a direct-sale operation model.

It was not until 2024 that the brand was upgraded to "Mr. Savage" and officially opened its franchise system, ushering in a stage of rapid expansion. According to data from Zhaimen Data queried by Jiemian News, Mr. Savage opened about 243 stores in 2024, around 906 stores in 2025, and about 641 new stores so far in 2026.

The financing of Mr. Savage took place during a period when investment in the new consumption sector cooled down. Compared with the past when capital chased new consumer brands and competed to drive expansion through financing, investment institutions now pay more attention to the operating quality and sustainable growth capacity of brands.

In the first half of 2026, financing in the new consumption sector still occurred, but funds were obviously concentrated in areas such as AI-powered smart consumption, making it significantly more difficult for traditional consumer projects such as food and beverages to attract capital attention.

According to the investment and financing data released by iBrandi Pinchuang, 63 financing deals were completed in the new consumption sector in the first half of the year, 28 of which went to AI-powered smart consumption; the three traditional consumer categories of food, beverages, beauty & personal care and apparel recorded a total of 20 deals. In terms of total investment, the estimated total amount of the 63 new consumption investment and financing deals was about 5.356 billion yuan. Although this figure is higher than the 44 deals worth nearly 2.8 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, it is far from comparable to the 366 deals worth over 25 billion yuan in the same period of 2022.

Consumer spending has become rational and restrained, and franchisees are also carefully evaluating their choices. A number of people with many years of franchise experience in the catering and tea beverage industries told Jiemian News that nowadays, fewer franchisees in the market are willing to invest millions in a single store, and people with sufficient capital strength will only choose the top leading brands in their niche categories to join.

Mr. Savage's financing is particularly precious against this backdrop.

Mr. Savage Global Gelato Flagship Store Image source: Mr. Savage's official Xiaohongshu account

02

The biggest innovation of Mr. Savage's products lies in its transformation of the way Italian ice cream is sold in China. Traditional Italian ice cream is mostly handmade, relying on the experience of ice cream makers, while Mr. Savage has transformed the production process into pre-processing at a central factory and final production at the store. This model retains the freshly made experience while reducing operational discrepancies across different stores, enabling large-scale and standardized production of this ice cream category. Its franchise network has spread its presence to cities, counties and towns across China.

After the production method was transformed, the price of freshly made ice cream also dropped. The unit price of freshly made ice cream that could be seen in the early Chinese market was about 60 yuan, while Mr. Savage's ice cream is priced at around 30 yuan.

In fact, this is also the reason why Black Ant Capital made the investment. Black Ant Capital told Jiemian News that Italian ice cream is a large category with a global consumer base. Against the backdrop that new-style tea drinks and other formats are continuously diverting consumers, the ice cream market is not a fast-growing market. However, Mr. Savage has re-stimulated consumer demand through product innovation and store experience innovation.

Since 2026, Black Ant Capital's own investment pace has also become much more cautious. In 2026, in addition to Mr. Savage, the only new consumption project publicly disclosed by Black Ant Capital is PANE, a domestic footwear brand that focuses on German training shoes in the 800-1000 yuan price range. The brand started online and is now continuously expanding offline, making it one of the most popular Chinese brands in consumers' shopping bags at home and abroad.

But the ice cream business is still not easy to run. The number of closed stores is very large, and at the same time, chain tea brands are adding ice cream to their product lines, such as Heytea and Bawangchaji.

After the growth of store size is no longer the main indicator of brand growth, Mr. Savage needs to solve the problems of how to attract consumers and how to position its brand.

In April this year, Mr. Savage put forward the new positioning of "Oriental Gelato (Freshly Made Ice Cream)", using local ingredients such as Hengxian jasmine and Wuchang rice to enrich product flavors, and strengthening brand experience through flagship stores. At the same time, it is also trying products such as ice cream cakes to expand scenarios for group sharing and casual consumption.

This article is from "Jiemian News", reporter: Li Ye, editor: Xu Yue, authorized for release by 36Kr.