Company Profile - Curious Universe

Curiously creative

As Curious Universe prepares to expand on its new toy brands Crystalverse and Cutesville, Toy World’s Marianna Casal sat down with CEO John Styring and Head of Business Development David Martin to hear more about their vision for these products, as well as the company’s phenomenal growth in just five years.

Toy World arrived at the Curious Universe head office in Bath on 31st October feeling a little underdressed. With an appointment to meet and interview John Styring, we were surprised to be greeted by Beetlejuice, resplendent in black and white stripes from head to toe and a silky black tie. His white and black face paint was very impressive, which he admitted was applied by one of his talented staff.

John clearly isn’t a man to do anything by halves. Curious Universe emerged after his previous company, Igloo Books, was sold in 2014. Initially choosing to continue to utilise his expertise in the book market, John was very quickly approached by Hinkler, based in Australia, about joining forces on a wider offering. Within six months, they sealed the deal and Curious Universe was born. Now, with a wide offering of toys, craft, books and stationery, between 60-70% of products are designed and created in the UK and the rest in Australia.

John says: “It’s worked out well with both teams complementing each other. The Australian team is amazing at the adult products while our strength lies in the kids side of the business. Since forming, we’ve grown at a very rapid rate, which I’m very proud of. We now have just short of 100 staff in the UK across sales, design, editorial, manufacturing and operation and logistics. When we come up with a list of products, within 12-18 months they are ready to be dropped into the market.”

Curious Universe has four divisions within the business which John refers to as ‘worlds’: Explore, for books; Play, for toys; Create, for arts & crafts and Imagine, for stationery. Although there is of course some overlap between worlds, arts & crafts is the sector which dominates - about 50% of its products fall into this category.

The company is now putting more investment into its toys offering, which John predicts to be the fastest growing area of the business over the next few years. To date, Curious Universe has released about 620 new products each year across its different worlds and currently has about 2,000 products in its portfolio.

As part of this new focus on toys, John brought in some extra manpower with vast experience in the toy sector: David Martin as head of Business Development, Mark Murray as head of Mass Market, and Mark Burge as group sales d irector who has been on board since the company’s inception. All three will be representing Curious Universe at the London Toy Fair and David and Mark Murray will be at Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg.

David joined Curious Universe in May this year, having dedicated his time to independent consulting projects during the Covid pandemic. After spending 18 years at Crayola as part of the senior management team, David continued his career as GM at InspirationWorks (KD Group) and more recently, has held senior commercial positions at Funrise and extended his marketing experience as part of children’s market research companies.

David is enthusiastic about his new role: “I am delighted to have joined Curious Universe as part of a fast-growing and dynamic team, which is expanding both here in the UK and internationally. I’m now six months in, and in my entire toy career, I’ve never experienced a local business as dedicated and fast paced as this. Toy domination is our newest plan – and as we speak, the Crystalverse ad is almost at one million hits on YouTube Kids and TikTok in only two and a half weeks, and our UK lead national multiple toy retail partner has just informed us that Crystalverse was the most searched product line on their website last week. Please come and see us at Olympia and Nuremberg and let us show you the Curious Universe story.”

to have joined Curious Universe as part of a fast-growing and dynamic team, which is expanding both here in the UK and internationally. I’m now six months in, and in my entire toy career, I’ve never experienced a local business as dedicated and fast paced as this. Toy domination is our newest plan – and as we speak, the Crystalverse ad is almost at one million hits on YouTube Kids and TikTok in only two and a half weeks, and our UK lead national multiple toy retail partner has just informed us that Crystalverse was the most searched product line on their website last week. Please come and see us at Olympia and Nuremberg and let us show you the Curious Universe story.”

The Crystalverse range has introduced three characters - Kiki, Starlana and Apollo - and more will be launched in 2024 including a sporty unicorn. The design team aims to create characters that anyone can relate to. “We endeavour to have a narrative and storyline to bring products and characters to life,” John explains. “Our long-term plan is the expand outside of the UK and continue to expand both Crystalverse and Cutesville.”

He adds: “As a small, new business in this space, we have taken on board a lot of learnings. In January, we only committed to showing at Olympia a few weeks before the event. Crystalverse was not quite ready, and our stand was tucked into the corner, so we learned some lessons. But we continued to improve and develop, and I believe we’ve now come up with a some really stonking products.”

Curious Universe has already secured distribution at several top retailers. Crystalverse is currently offered at a range of price points, from £7 to £25, but the range will be expanding to £50 and £100 varieties as well as sub£10 blind bags. The company aims to do the same with Cutesville too.

John explained: “We’re used to selling products which max out at £20 and the sweet spot is about £7-£10 with high volumes. Crystalverse and Cutesville have a lot of play value to them and the more we expand on the collections, the more kids can build their worlds. People are looking for increased value for money in their purchases now, and we aim to provide that.”

A Crystalverse gaming app will be launching to help bring the characters to life in the modern digital world. John says that he would love for this to also be done with Cutesville once the brand has established itself.

Recently, Curious Universe has also been exploring its licensing potential. The company has already secured some of the hottest licences with Squishmallows, Paw Patrol, My Little Pony, Magic Mixies and CoComelon. These partnerships have proved a great success story for the company, with 60 products already created this year, mostly within the arts & crafts space, and some of which were launched in Australia. Getting a hold of these licences immediately attracted more high-profile retailers for the company which John says has been very exciting. Curious Universe is still on the lookout for licences which work well with its offering.

Curious Universe has also secured the rights to distribute products from US-based stationery brand, Yoobi, in the UK and Europe. These colourful, fashionable and themed stationery products of all sorts have worked well in toy stores looking to expand their offering to older children – and for every item sold, Yoobi donates school supplies to a child in need in the US. Curious Universe is in the process of reaching out to charities and organisations to find out where children are most in need on this side of the pond to launch the same initiative. John hopes to give away 1m units in the first year after launch.

“Yoobi offers high-quality, innovative and fun products,” says John. “They are also great value – at the same price you would find own-brand products. Four major retailers are already interested, and we plan to launch for back-to-school next year. The ‘One for You, One for Me’ slogan is what attracted us to this brand. It’s a way of empowering young people in their learning who don’t have sufficient resources. When we saw the videos of children and teachers receiving these donations in the USA, we saw the difference it can make – they were so excited. A lot of the time, teachers are going into their own pockets to get school supplies for children.”

Having only become truly established in 2018, Curious Universe is proud to have come a long way and has high hopes for the coming years. “We’re seeing fast growth in every respect,” remarks John. “We started in a two-bed flat and now we have four offices filling three floors. The area is also very representative of what we stand for. Bath is a very creative area, and we have a number of staff coming in from Bristol, another creative area. This creativity runs through a lot of our products.”

As were shown around the offices by David, the energy and creativity throughout the building was infectious. On the top floor were meeting rooms and toy displays separated into each ‘world’. Each office on the subsequent floors was bright and spacious, with the toys and colourful pictures on the walls echoing the upbeat spirit of fun and creativity that Curious Universe embodies. And almost everyone was entering into the spirit of Halloween with a variety of impressive costumes.

The team is looking forward to a period of strong growth and is excited about what’s to come in 2024. As Beetlejuice would say, for Curious Universe, “It’s showtime!”

Readers are invited to see the Curious Universe story for themselves at Olympia (stand D34) and Nuremberg (Hall 12 stand B-04-4).