1. When did you first meet the Laopu Gold team? And when did BA Capital invest in Laopu Gold?
We first met the team in 2019.
Later, when Laopu Gold opened its first round of financing, which was also its only round before going public, BA Capital led the investment. That was in November 2023.
2. When researching Laopu Gold’s consumers, what surprised you the most?
What surprised us was that, in many consumers’ minds, Laopu Gold offers stronger perceived value than even some international jewelry brands.But this sense of “worth” is inward-facing. It is not about outward display or showing off.
During our research, we found that consumers often benchmark Laopu Gold against major jewelry brands.
At first, we thought consumers saw Laopu as a more affordable alternative to international jewelry brands, but after more in-depth interviews, we realized that was not the case.
Laopu Gold’s average order value is around RMB 25,000 (USD 3,600), which is already comparable to international jewelry brands.
What we learned is that consumers feel Laopu’s products are “more worth it” because, for them, the purchase is a form of self-reward.
This also reflects a strong demand for self-pleasing consumption among Laopu’s clients today.
3. What impressed you the most about the Laopu Gold team?
Most of Laopu Gold’s senior executives, from a very early stage, have been building the company together with its founder, Mr. Xu Gaoming.
Some joined right after graduation and have stayed through the company’s development over the past two to three decades.
Most members of the management team have more than 20 years of experience — or even longer — in the field of heritage gold craftsmanship.
You could say the entire Laopu Gold team has a very strong commitment to long-termism.
The fact that these designs and craftsmanship are loved by consumers today is inseparable from the team’s long-term accumulation over the years.
4. In assessing Laopu Gold’s value, is it more about Laopu, or more about gold?
Laopu and gold are naturally inseparable.
But one point is very important: what BA Capital looks for is an investment opportunity with growing brand momentum, not a cyclical play.
Not all gold is Laopu, not all heritage gold is Laopu, and not every demand for gold necessarily leads consumers to buy Laopu Gold.
From the very beginning, Laopu Gold positioned itself in the high-end market.
Across product craftsmanship, pricing, and channel strategy, it has built a closed-loop operating model for a high-end brand.
If you visit one of its stores in person and take a closer look at the best-selling “Rose Window” product series, you will understand that the experience Laopu provides to consumers is truly unique.
5. Can you use a few data points to explain Laopu Gold’s differentiation?
Laopu Gold’s price range spans from several thousand yuan to several hundred thousand yuan. Around 90% [updated] of its revenue comes from products priced above RMB 10,000.
Unlike common gold jewelry brands in China, which typically price products based on gold weight plus processing fees, Laopu Gold uses a fixed-price model, similar to the way luxury jewelry brands sell their products.
This model also shows that the value of Laopu’s products lies more in original design and exquisite craftsmanship.
All of Laopu Gold’s stores are directly operated.
Among all gold and jewelry brands, its revenue per store has ranked No. 1 in China for three consecutive years, according to the latest 2024 annual report.
Another No. 1 is its coverage in China’s top 10 high-end shopping malls. Among those malls, Laopu Gold has entered eight, making its coverage the highest nationwide.
6. How significant is the self-pleasing nature of heritage gold jewelry, and the cultural inheritance behind it?
In China’s gold jewelry retail market, consumers buying for self-wear contribute 40% of retail sales. This means self-wear has become the most important consumption scenario for jewelry.
Heritage gold jewelry not only carries consumers’ need for aesthetic expression through product design; culturally, it also resonates more strongly with Chinese and East Asian tastes.
Traditional gold craftsmanship has a history of more than a thousand years.
Alongside the long evolution of the craft, a whole system of traditional Chinese cultural expression has also been accumulated.
For example, in product design, Laopu Gold uses motifs such as flying apsaras and dragons, golden dragons and phoenixes, and longevity locks.
These are all classic Eastern cultural symbols, carrying Chinese people’s imagination of a beautiful life.
At the same time, heritage gold jewelry has an overall matte texture. Because many handcrafted processes are involved, the products carry a warm, understated, and antique quality.
This aligns closely with Chinese aesthetic preferences and ways of living.
7. After going public, what are the key words for Laopu Gold’s development over the next five years?
Over the next five years, we are looking forward to the company’s development in three areas: building stronger brand momentum, unlocking store potential, and expanding overseas.
Among consumers who already know Laopu Gold, the brand has built very strong word of mouth. The next step is to raise brand awareness among a broader consumer base, so that people who have not heard of Laopu before begin to notice it.
This will bring very strong growth momentum to the company.
As brand momentum is released, store productivity will also be unlocked.
As more consumers become aware of Laopu, both foot traffic and sales volume will increase, driving further growth in same-store sales.
In the coming years, Laopu Gold will also open more stores and further improve its penetration in first-tier and new first-tier cities.
Now that Laopu Gold has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its market visibility will continue to increase. Its status as a listed company will also help Laopu expand overseas more effectively in the future.
Once the overseas market opens up, I believe Laopu’s growth potential will be very, very significant.
8. Consumers call Laopu Gold “the Hermès of gold.” Is it inevitable or accidental that China will have its own luxury brands?
We believe it is inevitable that China will have its own luxury brands.
In fact, what matters more is not price, but consumers’ recognition of their own culture. Behind the century-long development of all luxury brands lies the rising acceptance and diffusion of the cultures they represent.
China’s economic development over the past four decades has already created something close to a miracle.
Beyond the improvement of material life, we can also see that more people are seeking a higher quality of life and a richer spiritual and cultural world. They are looking inward to construct meaning in their own lives. Chinese consumers’ cultural confidence is also being built. We look forward to the rise of local brands that can truly represent Chinese characteristics and create cultural identification among consumers.
Finally, I would add that whether in R&D, design, or management, China’s talent pipeline has become increasingly mature over the years.
All of these factors have created solid ground for China to give rise to its own luxury brands.
9. Within BA Capital’s portfolio, what sentence would you use to describe the investment in Laopu Gold?
By type, Laopu Gold is an experiential consumption investment.
BA Capital has an investment framework called the “Differentiation & Efficiency Business Model.”
In our view, throughout business history, all great companies have succeeded along two dimensions: Efficiency (Cost Leadership) and Differentiation (Better Experiences). These two paths are not completely parallel, nor are they entirely separate. But they relate to the first-principles understanding of every business.
Laopu Gold is a brand that has taken differentiated consumer experience to an extremely high and distinctive level.
On the other hand, our investment in Laopu Gold once again validates BA Capital’s leading insight into consumer demand. This insight typically comes two to three years before the inflection point when brand momentum truly breaks out.
That is one of BA Capital’s differentiated capabilities.
10. From Pop Mart to Laopu Gold, how does BA Capital assess the value of a differentiation-driven company?
I would describe it this way: intuition comes first, and rational analysis provides the foundation.
For companies driven by creating better experiences, the first step is usually to identify unusual signals based on our experience.
In the case of Laopu Gold, when we first came into contact with the company, we noticed several unusual signals.
For example, its single-store sales and sales per square meter were exceptionally high. Another example was that consumers on Rednote were consistently giving positive reviews. This kind of spontaneous consumer advocacy for a brand is not common.
After identifying these anomalies, we conduct very rigorous and systematic analysis. This is the part I refer to as “rational analysis providing the foundation”: understanding how these anomalies were formed.
Are the factors behind them accidental or inevitable? What exactly is driving the high growth?These questions help us evaluate a brand’s long-term development potential from a more quantitative perspective.
They also help us understand, as an investment target, what valuation level the company should receive, and how much capital it needs to support future growth.
11. What capabilities should an exceptional differentiation-driven company have?
An exceptional differentiation-driven company should naturally orient every part of its operations around the ultimate user experience.
This requires sharp consumer insight, refined product design capabilities, strong strategic discipline, and powerful team execution.
Laopu Gold is a typical example.
From the perspective of consumer insight, Laopu has captured the psychology of luxury consumers who place great importance on store experience.
In building its store business model, Laopu has made careful arrangements across site selection, merchandise display, design, and service. Whether it is store staff explaining the cultural meaning behind the products, or consumers experiencing the cultural atmosphere of a store designed around the theme of a Ming- and Qing-style study, the experience is distinctive.
We often say that good aesthetics matter, but aesthetics are actually an outcome. Good aesthetics are built and cultivated over time.
Looking at Laopu’s product development, the founder leads the design team and is deeply involved in revising design sketches.
When recruiting designers, the company also requires them to have strong artistic training and accumulated knowledge of traditional culture. That is why Laopu has been able to continuously launch products, such as “Rose Window” and “Butterfly Enamel,” with core competitiveness.
The third capability is strategic focus, which is also a form of long-termism. Because an exceptional experience and an exceptional brand cannot be built in a single day.
They must be refined and perfected through long-term accumulation.
