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Forbes

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  • New Biotech Billionaire Minted In Caris Life Sciences IPO
  • Comedy creator @ItsAdamW has 20 million subscribers on YouTube alone—Saturday Night Live, the gold standard for sketch comedy, has 15 million. (Photo: Cody Pickens for Forbes)
  • The Prototype: Space Company Voyager’s Stock Soars On IPO In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at a big space stock IPO, Korea’s plan to dominate the world of robots, building electric motors without metal and more. You can sign up to get The Prototype in your inbox here. Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Technologies Inc. Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Technologies Inc. © 2025 Bloomberg Finance LP Space company Voyager Technologies brought in nearly $383 million in its IPO on Wednesday, with shares priced at $31. The company offers a number of different space services for both governments and commercial customers, including services on board the International Space Station. Its stock price soared upon the opening of trading, hitting a sky-high $63.88 at one point on Wednesday. It’s since come back down to Earth a bit, closing at $49.70 yesterday, giving it a market cap of over $2.7 billion. The company plans to use the increased capital to expand a number of its offerings, particularly Starlab, a private space station the company is developing for use after the International Space Station is decommissioned. Investors hope this success might lead to more IPOs in the space sector this year. P.S. - Quick housekeeping note: There will be no edition of the Prototype next week, as I will be off for the holiday. See you all back here on the 27th! How South Korea’s Chaebols Are Pushing The Robotics Revolution Hyundai CEO with robot dog Joe Buglewicz/AP In 2021 Hyundai Motor Company paid $1.1 billion to acquire 80% of robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics, famous for videos of its dog-shaped bot named Spot and its running and jumping humanoid Atlas. The deal initially seemed more of a headline grab for Hyundai rather than part of a fully baked strategy. That’s no longer the case. Four years later, Hyundai now represents the tip of the spear in Korea Inc.’s thrust into robotics. The company has continued to develop Spot, especially for use as a roving site inspector, and is also iterating on Atlas, with the intention of selling mass-produced humanoids controlled by AI as soon as 2028. Hyundai’s robotics lab has already deployed its X-ble platform of wearable robotic exoskeletons for use in factories. X-ble Shoulder, launched late last year after trials with 300 workers, is said to reduce shoulder and deltoid muscle exertions by more than 30% when lifting heavy objects like car parts. Its X-ble MEX is a more complicated rehabilitation suit that can help people walk again. Incredibly, these X-ble exoskeletons don’t require an outside power source, instead using passive spring-torque mechanics. Industrial robots are nothing new to Korea, which already leads the world in density of robot deployment, with 1,000 bots per 10,000 factory workers, compared to about 300 in the U.S. and 470 in China. But now its industries and government see a massive opportunity for robots outside the factory. A new public-private partnership, the K-Humanoid Alliance, aims to offer a commercially viable bipedal bot by 2028 that weighs less than 130 pounds, can lift 40 pounds, walk about 3 yards per second and can move with the flexibility enabled by more than 50 joints. The K-Humanoid Alliance also seeks to develop a common AI “brain” that all Korean robots can use. Read the whole story at Forbes. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK: AN ELECTRIC MOTOR WITHOUT METAL A team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology has invented an electric motor that doesn’t use any metal. Instead, its main electric components are made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which are lighter than metals but just as electrically conductive. Use of this material has been proposed in the past, but has been hampered by the fact that making CNTs involves metals, and the residue left behind ends up degrading electrical performance. The researchers figured out a way to remove those metal particles with a chemical process that didn’t disrupt the CNT’s structure. FINAL FRONTIER: FIRST IMAGES OF THE SUN’S SOUTH POLE The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft has sent back the first clear images of the sun’s south pole. The unique views of the sun were captured on March 16-17, when the Solar Orbiter was orbiting the sun from 15 degrees below the solar equator, enabling this first look. The spacecraft’s three cameras provide images of the sun in visible light, ultraviolet light, and light emanating from different temperatures of charged gas above the sun’s surface, revealing distinct layers of the sun’s atmosphere. WHAT ELSE I WROTE THIS WEEK In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, Amy Feldman and I wrote about RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisory committee purge, a tech billionaire’s funding of research on AI and healthcare, FDA approval of a new medicine that prevents RSV in infants and digital health company Omada’s IPO. On the Forbes YouTube channel, I spoke with my colleague Brittany Lewis about the potential science impacts of the Trump Administration’s proposed budget cuts to NASA as well as the potential consequences of HHS Secretary Kennedy firing all members of a key vaccine advisory committee. SCIENCE AND TECH TIDBITS Researchers developed a new kind of paint that can passively cool buildings. It does this in two ways. First, its color reflects sunlight, which is a well-known technique. But it also incorporates nanoparticles that make the paint more porous, so that it captures more water when it’s wet. When that water evaporates, it cools down the building, working the same way sweat does to cool down your body. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took new photos of Uranus, giving scientists new insights about the seventh planet. One surprise: Its magnetic field doesn’t interact with its moons. IBM is aiming to have the first practical quantum computer built by 2028. It will comprise modular units each containing quantum chipsets, and the company says it has figured out scalable error correction, one of the major issues holding quantum computing back. Satellite company Kymeta developed a single antenna that can communicate across multiple satellite frequency bands. Until now, a satellite had to be outfitted with multiple antennas to do this, so this could lay a foundation for more seamless satellite communications. A gene therapy for hemophilia is still safe and effective, over a decade after it is first administered. A new study found that 10 patients who received it between 2010 and 2012 still showed the benefits of their one-time treatment, with few side effects. PRO SCIENCE TIP: MAKE YOUR BUSINESS MORE PROFITABLE WITH AN IPO An analysis of over 3,500 companies across Europe over a span of 20 years found that firms that are newly-listed on the stock market will see a quick boost of profit compared to private companies that abandon their plans to IPO. The researchers also found that those companies see an increase in sales per employee and greater market expansion following going public as well. “Going public may unlock growth potential, provided market conditions are favourable,” researcher Francisco Urzua said in a press release about the study. WHAT’S ENTERTAINING ME THIS WEEK The great rock musician Brian Wilson passed away earlier this week at the age of 82. To commemorate his legacy, Rolling Stone enshrined 25 of his essential songs, and I can’t quibble with any of their picks. My own personal top five: “God Only Knows”, “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”, “Good Vibrations”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” and the utterly transcendent “Love And Mercy.” He may be gone now, but he’s left behind an incredible catalog of music.
  • Pop Mart’s Wang Ning Is China’s 10th Richest Thanks To Labubu Mania Pop Mart's Labubu Triggers Buying Spree Labubu dolls on display at a Pop Mart store in Shanghai, Around the world, toys based on the character by Chinese toy company Pop Mart are flying off store shelves. Wang Ning, founder of toy maker Pop Mart International Group, has joined the ranks of China’s top ten billionaires for the first time, as the company’s Labubu dolls fly off store shelves in Asia, Europe and the U.S. Wang, who is the Beijing-based company’s chairman and CEO, is now the 10th richest man in China, according to the Forbes’s Real-Time Billionaires List. With a net worth of $22.7 billion based on a Pop Mart stake, the 38-year-old is the youngest member of the country’s top echelon of tycoons, which includes ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, Nongfu Spring Chairman Zhong Shanshan and Tencent cofounder Ma Huateng. The price of Pop Mart’s Hong Kong-listed shares has tripled to more than $270 ($34.40) this year. Designed by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, the company’s Labubu dolls are being collected by celebrities around the world including American pop star Rihanna, English-Albanian singer and actress Dua Lipa and Lisa of the South Korean girl group Blackpink. The rabbit-like Labubu, which has pointed ears, jagged teeth and a mischievous smile, is causing havoc in stores. After Pop Mart launched a third edition of the doll in April, fights broke out in one London store among fans desperate to fork out £13.50 ($18.30) to £50 per doll. In its home market of China, a human-sized Labubu doll was auctioned on Tuesday for a whopping 1.08 million yuan ($150,000) in Beijing. China’s Ping An Bank tried to entice new customers by offering Labubu toys to anyone who opened a new account and deposited more than 50,000 yuan. That practice was recently stopped by financial regulators, who said the bank was offering improper incentives to attract deposits. Amid the seemingly insatiable demand for Labubu, investment banks Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley are substantially lifting their price targets for Pop Mart shares. Deutsche Bank, for example, lifted its target by 52% to HK$303 due to the company’s strong overseas growth momentum. "It is rare for a comic/toy IP [intellectual property] to break the culture wall and be embraced by both Asian cultures as well as mainstream Western pop stars and sports stars," Deutsche Bank analyst Jessie Xu wrote in a research note. A Pop Mart representative says the company has no comment on its share price. But not everyone is convinced it can last. “Overall, we view Pop Mart's shares as overvalued from a long-term perspective,” Jeff Zhang, a Hong Kong-based equity analyst at Morningstar, says by email. “While top IPs such as Labubu have maintained strong sales growth, we think long-run business risks remain high, as consumers' traction may shift to competitors' IPs.” When that might happen is difficult to predict, Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International, says by WeChat. The long-term growth of Pop Mart depends on whether its designers can keep creating hot products, he says. As for now, Ng says the shares are a bit expensive. The HK$365 billion company currently trades at more than 50 times its estimated earnings for 2025, he says. Pop Mart says sales during the first three months of this year grew as much as 170% year-on-year without providing specific figures, according to preliminary first quarter results announced via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April. The company had previously estimated that full-year sales could grow over 50% year-on-year to more than 20 billion yuan in 2025. Last year, its revenue surged 107% to 13 billion yuan, while profit attributable to owners of the company jumped over 180% to 3.1 billion yuan. Ng says short-term investors might need to wait and see. “I think there might be an investment opportunity if the shares fall a bit,” he says. “They are definitely not cheap.”
  • Find where you’re holding yourself back, build the right character traits, make playing small painful, get a second opinion and review with courage.
  • America’s Richest Women Celebrities 2025 After years of booming entrepreneurship, the market is softening for celebrity-backed companies. But eye-watering earnings continue to roll in for the biggest female movie, TV and pop stars in the country. Matt Craig COMP1-Kim-Kardashian-Oprah-Beyonce_RGB2 In business, timing is everything—even for the rich and famous. The boom time for celebrity entrepreneurship took off like a rocket around the end of 2020, and the pop stars, actors and talk show hosts who best took advantage minted fortunes in the hundreds of millions, even billions in a few cases, by putting their name on everything from cosmetics brands to TV and movie production companies. But now they, like many others, are feeling the effects of a cooling economy. On Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women this year, 16 celebrities rank among the 100 entrepreneurs, executives and entertainers. In order to make the cut, candidates had to be worth at least $350 million—up from $300 million last year and $225 million in 2023. These stars of the stage and screen are collectively worth $14.1 billion, up from $13.3 billion last year—thanks to the addition of actress Selena Gomez (No. 48), who isn’t yet a billionaire but whose estimated $700 million net worth makes up almost the entirety of that difference. Most of the other 15 stars’ fortunes are little changed from a year ago. Gomez launched her cosmetics company Rare Beauty at the start of the celebrity business boom, in September 2020, and it disclosed $367 million in revenue by 2023. Similarly, Judy Sheindlin (No. 61) signed a mega deal in late 2020 to move her eponymous TV arbitration show to Amazon Prime; pop star Rihanna (No. 35) raised money for her Savage x Fenty lingerie brand at a $1 billion valuation in early 2021; Madonna (No. 42) signed a lucrative new deal with Warner Music that summer; and, perhaps most notably, movie star Reese Witherspoon (No. 82) sold a majority stake in her production company Hello Sunshine in August 2021 at a reported $900 million valuation. The Hello Sunshine sale is now referenced regularly throughout Hollywood as the peak of a celebrity production bubble. At the time of the acquisition by Blackstone-backed Candle Media, the company projected $80 million in profit by 2023. But according to an October 2023 report in Bloomberg, it produced less than $10 million that year, and the pace of new productions has only continued to slow in the two years since. As of 2025, Forbes estimates Hello Sunshine is worth less than a third of its sale price. (A representative for Witherspoon disagreed with Forbes, but offered no guidance.) Markets have similarly cooled in the cosmetics space, the industry behind several women on the list, including Gomez, Rihanna, Kardashian and her half-sister Kylie Jenner (No. 52). Forbes estimates Rihanna’s net worth dropped nearly 30% in the past year, due to estimates of flat sales at Fenty Beauty and lingerie brand Savage X Fenty. “The market condition right now is exerting a sort of downward pressure on valuation,” Morningstar analyst Dan Su told Forbes in early May, referring to cosmetics firms. The same goes for music catalogs. Katy Perry (No. 97) sold stakes in her master recordings and publishing rights in 2023 for an estimated $225 million, but a similar artist trying to do the same deal today would expect a 20% to 30% discount, analysts tell Forbes. Perry is headed back out on tour this summer, as is Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (No. 45), who saw a massive jump in her net worth during her blockbuster Renaissance tour in 2023 but has already seen lower ticket prices and sales during early stops of her Cowboy Carter tour. The big outlier to this trend is Taylor Swift (No. 21), whose wealth increased by $300 million in the past year to $1.6 billion, according to Forbes estimates. Her signature Eras Tour started in 2023 and ended in December 2024, grossing a record-breaking $2 billion and generating earnings in a variety of ways, including ticket sales, a blockbuster movie and a book about the tour, a phenomenon that made her immune to the trend that hit other celebrities.
  • The ForbesUnder30Local Columbus list features young athletes, innovators and entrepreneurs making an impact. Learn more about the rising stars and future leaders in Columbus
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