Funko literally produced more dolls than it could afford. And now it faces the biggest crisis in its history
It seemed that this moment would never come, but it did: the Funko Pop They are in crisis. In popular culture everything is cycles, and if now it is an inevitable topic in the conversation the “superhero fatigue“, after having lived through years in which it seemed that there was going to be nothing but superheroes in the cinema, now it is the turn of the Funko Pop. All after an overwhelming success, which has turned these dolls cut from the same pattern into inevitable passengers in any conversation about the pop panorama. The data. The company recognized in its last quarterly report that there are “substantial doubts” about its ability to continue operating for the next twelve months. Funko carries $241 million in total debt while maintaining just $39.2 million in cash reserves, a ratio that puts the company on the brink of the financial abyss. In the second quarter of 2025, Funko lost $41 million, and although the third quarter showed an improvement with losses of less than one million, these contrast with the $8.9 million profit in the same period just a year earlier, in 2024. The reasons. Sales fell from 292.8 million to 250.9 million year-on-year, a 14% drop that originated mainly in the US market. In 2023, the company destroyed between 30 and 36 million dollars in excess inventory, literally sending millions of figures to landfills because it was cheaper to eliminate them than to pay for storage. The crisis has multiple culprits: the Trump administration’s trade tariffs have hit toys with the nature of Funko hard: cheap items made abroad. But the fundamental problem is structural: overproduction. Funko has systematically and for years produced more than the market has been able to absorb, believing that demand would be infinite. This has led to the company’s debt growing from 182.8 million at the end of 2024 to the current 241 million, an increase of 32% in less than a year. The signs told us. There were different crises that made it clear that problems could come for Funko Pop. In 2021, the pandemic led to a boom and the company achieved record sales of one billion dollars, an increase of 58% over 2020. But like the entire economy that emerged during the pandemic, it was temporary. The post-pandemic drop (losses in the fourth quarter of 2022 of $47 million) should have served as a warning. Then, in 2023, the massive destruction of inventory confirmed that Funko Pop was generating material beyond its capabilities. 40 different Grogu dollsIf nothing woke us up before, it should have been a warning to sailors. And what about collectors? The company crisis is not just a problem of corporate mirage: it is the collapse of a dangerous aspect of collectingwhich is done by mere accumulation of assets that it is believed that it is going to revalue in the future. We have seen exclusive figures for the San Diego Comic-Con that They were resold for 200 or 500% above their original price (and the same phenomenon repeated at the recent Comic-Con in Malaga). And we have seen sets reach impossible prices (especially mythical isWilly Wonka quele in 2022 which reached $100,000). Now, second-hand sales platforms show Funkos that sold for $200 languish at $10. Even discontinued figures can be found at bargain prices, all due to overproduction, which made the “exclusive” or “limited release” label lose its value. There are those who compare what is happening with the phenomenon of Beanie Babies, highly coveted a couple of decades ago by collectors in the United States, and whose bubble ended up exploding. Plastic mountains. AND eye on environmental impactwhich goes beyond a few (many) collectors with shelves full of products that have lost their value. The aforementioned between 1.4 and 3 million vinyl figures that were sent to landfill They were only the first phase of mass destruction. The material Funkos are made of, PVC, can remain in landfills for centuries because it is not biodegradable. And hundreds of millions of units are produced every year, which in the United States are deposited in landfills perfectly legally (in countries like France, companies were prohibited from destroying unsold non-food merchandise, forcing them to donate or recycle). Header | Photo of Z Graphica in Unsplash
