Hillhouse and Cathay Capital Jointly Invest in a Card Company
This is the largest financing in the card market.
On August 11, 2025, Shanghai Zhenyouqu Culture Technology Co., Ltd.'s cultural and creative brand "ShiningSoul" announced the completion of its first round of financing worth hundreds of millions of RMB.
This news has attracted widespread attention in the venture capital and cultural creative sectors. The lead investor is Hillhouse Venture Capital, with Gao Rong Venture Capital and Cathay Capital following suit. Guangyuan Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.
Yaoji ShiningSoul
Entering ShiningSoul's Shanghai office, three special cards stand on founder Sheng Chuan's desk: the original Ultraman card from the Ka You era, the first engraved card from "Identity V," and the test version of "Rune Battlefield" in collaboration with Riot Games. These perfectly string together this card industry veteran's 20-year journey.
In 2023, Sheng Chuan, former general manager of Ka You's innovation development department, teamed up with Yao Shuobin, chairman of Yaoji Technology, to establish ShiningSoul.
In the industry's view, this is "the person in the card industry who best understands IP operations meeting the partner who best understands supply chains."
Sheng Chuan is deeply versed in IP cardification, while Yaoji Technology, led by Yao Shuobin, has a mature card production system.
This "dual sword combination" genetic advantage allowed ShiningSoul to secure authorizations for top IPs like "Identity V" and "Girls' Frontline" in its founding month.
In early 2024, the "Girls' Frontline" collectible battle cards sold out in the first week of launch, with unboxing videos on Douyin exceeding tens of millions of views; the "Identity V" Engraved Time series, with its metal relief craftsmanship, was resold on Xianyu at 30 times the original price.
Investment Institutions' Calculations
As the lead investor, Hillhouse Venture Capital has always been known for its keen investment vision and has several successful cases in the IP field.
For example, Hillhouse invested in Pop Mart, which, with its popular IPs like "Molly," has occupied a significant position in the trendy toy market.
Hillhouse valued Pop Mart's IP operation capabilities and market potential, helping it grow rapidly through investment, and Pop Mart lived up to expectations, becoming a benchmark in the trendy toy industry.
Hillhouse Venture Capital partner Li Liang stated: "The ShiningSoul team combines IP insights with industrialized implementation capabilities, achieving exponential growth in the trillion-level card track; its deep translation of IP value and global commercial design have validated the new paradigm of 'content as channel.'
Hillhouse is willing to accompany ShiningSoul long-term to turn Chinese cultural symbols into world-class brands." This indicates that Hillhouse Venture Capital values the ShiningSoul team's IP operation capabilities and the potential market scale of the card track.
Cathay Capital has rich experience in global IP investments, having invested in the French anime company "Millimages," which owns several well-known anime IPs with widespread global influence.
Through investing in Millimages, Cathay Capital has learned advanced international IP operation models and globalization promotion experiences.
Cathay Capital partner Ma Jun mentioned: "In today's accelerating flow of global cultural content, Chinese original cards have every opportunity to become shared cultural symbols for global youth, just like Japanese anime and American comics. What we value is not a one-time hit, but a team that builds content, craftsmanship, gameplay, and channels into systematic capabilities."
"ShiningSoul not only captures the emotional value of the young generation but also transforms it into long-term reusable product power and community assets. This capability means it can continuously create high-quality cultural consumer goods and has the potential for cross-market replication and expansion. Cathay is willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ShiningSoul, promoting its continuous growth and helping Chinese cultural stories take the world stage."
Hidden Concerns in the Card Track
The core competitiveness of the card industry lies in IP resources. ShiningSoul's current success largely depends on collaborations with major popular games and other field IPs. Popular IPs bring their own traffic, attracting fans to purchase card products. But IP popularity is not constant; once the collaborated IP's heat declines, the card products' sales and market influence will be directly impacted.
In the IP field, "Labubu" is a typical example. Labubu, with its unique design style and successful early marketing, once became a hot IP in the trendy toy market, and related card products were also sought after.
However, as time passed, new trendy toy IPs emerged continuously, Labubu's freshness gradually faded, coupled with a lack of attractive content updates and innovative gameplay support in the later stages, its popularity plummeted, and related card product sales fell sharply.
Once hard-to-get high-priced cards became unwanted, and many dealers faced inventory backlog dilemmas.
For ShiningSoul, if it cannot continuously acquire high-quality popular IPs or if existing collaborated IPs' popularity wanes, the company's revenue growth will face enormous challenges.
Moreover, the cost of acquiring popular IPs is high, and as market competition intensifies, IP licensing fees may rise further, squeezing corporate profit margins.