Bilibili Gives Catgirl Millions: What Are They Betting On?

Just saw the conclusion of Bilibili's first AI Creation Open Competition. Project N.E.K.O. (Cat Girl Project) won first prize, taking home 1 million alone, from a total prize pool of 1.43 million. Another draft mentioned over 3 million, which I suspect is a mix-up in metrics, so I'll stick to this announcement.

I review over 500 AI and robotics projects a year. My first reaction is to ask: what's the valuation logic, and where is the ceiling for this track? Early-stage products in this category need to see if the scenario can work. The value of the Cat Girl Project lies in its distribution within the Bilibili community. One UP creator made it, 18 UP creators integrated plugins, and views exceeded 5.7 million. Over 80% of participants were solo teams, indicating low costs.

But low cost doesn't mean barriers to entry. Next, we need to see if there's retention after registration, if plugins bring stable calls, and if the Cat Girl can transform from a novel image in videos into a payable, repurchasable, licensable relationship service. ACG is suitable for cold starts but may get stuck on copyright, regulation, and persona boundaries. For platforms, million-yuan prizes look like low-cost market experiments. For investors, seeing only view counts without income sources means valuation should be discounted.

My advice is not to rush buying AI content as a new track. First, look for replayable feedback data: who is using it, what are they using, and why are they paying. Model capabilities are getting cheaper; community distribution and sustained transactions are what's scarce. That's it.