Laopu Gold

Laopu Gold is a Chinese luxury gold jewelry brand founded by Xu Gaoming, who drew on decades of experience in gold craftsmanship and personal study of Buddhism and art to build the company . In what 暗涌Waves described as the brand's only funding round in its 15-year history, Black Ant Capital led an investment in late 2023, half a year before Laopu Gold's June 2024 Hong Kong IPO . The listing proved extraordinary: shares rose more than 20-fold, with market cap at one point approaching HK$150 billion .

Black Ant's He Yu characterized Laopu Gold as a brand that has captured demand previously directed at Western luxury jewelry houses like Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, arguing that Chinese consumers' rising cultural confidence and declining "worship" of foreign luxury have eroded the latter's grip on the market . The company positioned itself through deliberate scarcity—maintaining just one Shanghai store in Yuyuan for over a decade until finding suitable premium locations—and an anti-marketing stance that relies on product quality and organic word-of-mouth rather than paid media . He also noted that Laopu Gold's service culture diverges sharply from traditional luxury retail: staff receive no sales commissions and treat customers with what he described as "genuine service and equal treatment" .