Funko Pop maker admits it might not survive another year as sales crash

Article on dexerto / archive

Funko has warned investors that it may not survive another year after reporting a sharp decline in sales and issuing a formal notice about its financial stability.

The collectibles giant behind the Pop Vinyl brand posted net sales of $250.9 million for the third quarter of 2025, down 14% from the same period last year, and recorded a net loss of roughly $1 million, according to its latest financial filing. The company cited falling demand, higher tariffs, and tighter retailer inventories as major challenges in what it described as a “difficult retail environment.“

Funko’s troubles follow years of explosive growth fueled by its vinyl collectibles, which once dominated shelves at Walmart, Target, and comic book stores. But as overproduction flooded the market and consumer interest waned, the company’s once-steady profits began to collapse. Reports from industry tracker ICv2 show that Funko’s U.S. sales plunged 20% year-over-year, accounting for most of its overall revenue drop.

“Substantial doubt” over Funko’s future​

In its latest SEC filing, Funko said there is “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern for the next 12 months,” acknowledging that without new funding or an acquisition, it could breach loan covenants and default on debt obligations. The company has roughly $250 million in total debt and has already amended its credit agreement twice in 2025 to secure covenant relief.

Funko says it will focus on smaller product lines such as Bitty Pops, blind-box collectibles, and its Pop Yourself kiosks while “exploring strategic alternatives,” including a potential sale. Once a billion-dollar powerhouse of pop-culture merchandise, the company now faces its most uncertain year yet.

 

[Quijibo69]

If, for some godforsaken reason, you wanted a figurine of the fucking Morton salt girl, Funko's got you covered:

I wonder why they're going under, these ones are always horrifying:

Box with eyeballs

 

[Night Terrorist]

I bought a Funko Pop for a disliked family member once, since I didn't want to buy him anything nice or expensive. The sheer disappointment in his eyes when he unwrapped that thing bought some Christmas cheer to my heart. They were convenient cheap gifts for retards, but it's for the best that they die off. Still, I expect the really rare ones might still be worth something, much like how certain Beanie Babies still command a high price.
There's also the terrifying possibility of Funko nostalgia flaring up in a couple of decades.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

During the height of the Current Year Funko Pop craze, I recall seeing some "toy" store in the mall... which sold nothing but Funko Pops. Pretty sure said store is gone now.

 

[Otterly]

Just think in a few hundred years from now, there will be archaeologists digging through former landfills finding a shit ton of these ugly things.

‘Ritual purposes.’
Honestly we all get lectured about the environment and there will be enough of these fucking things to fill a hundred landfills and pollute the groundwater for Millenia.

 

[Cuckoman]

They need to embrace the modern audience.
They should switch to NSFW 18+ funkopops. With replaceable genatilia.
Furry, tranny and faggo funkopops.

 

[DennisReynolds]

As a Dead by Daylight enjoyer I’ve learned a bit about how difficult and expensive it can be to deal with license holders, even for franchises that have been dead for decades (fuck you New Line/Freddy Krueger license holders). Epic (Fortnite) has made a fucktillion with their license deals, basically adding a new one every day. Even fucking popstars at the height of their fame and licensing rights to their image and catalogue for their shitty guitar hero game mode no one plays.

Funko has to be close to rivaling them in just the sheer amount of licenses they hold, and for a fraction of the price as they’re only being used for a singular simple purpose. How do you fuck that up so badly?!?!? I wonder if this a ruse to create even more artificial scarcity than they already with their shitty convention/retail exclusive figures.

 

[Dead Lion]

As a Dead by Daylight enjoyer I’ve learned a bit about how difficult and expensive it can be to deal with license holders, even for franchises that have been dead for decades (fuck you New Line/Freddy Krueger license holders). Epic (Fortnite) has made a fucktillion with their license deals, basically adding a new one every day. Even fucking popstars at the height of their fame and licensing rights to their image and catalogue for their shitty guitar hero game mode no one plays.

Funko has to be close to rivaling them in just the sheer amount of licenses they hold, and for a fraction of the price as they’re only being used for a singular simple purpose. How do you fuck that up so badly?!?!? I wonder if this a ruse to create even more artificial scarcity than they already with their shitty convention/retail exclusive figures.

Fortnite works because for what I understand the license holders don’t care if something remains to be used in the game they just care if it can be purchased or not. So they don’t have to pay forever for something just for the week it’s on the store.

Funko meanwhile seemingly produces their garbage for eternity, and as long as they keep making ‘em they gotta pay for them. I wouldn’t be suprised if they got themselves locked into some really shitty agreements as well.

 

[DennisReynolds]

Fortnite works because for what I understand the license holders don’t care if something remains to be used in the game they just care if it can be purchased or not. So they don’t have to pay forever for something just for the week it’s on the store.

Funko meanwhile seemingly produces their garbage for eternity, and as long as they keep making ‘em they gotta pay for them. I wouldn’t be suprised if they got themselves locked into some really shitty agreements as well.

Fortnite works because for what I understand the license holders don’t care if something remains to be used in the game they just care if it can be purchased or not. So they don’t have to pay forever for something just for the week it’s on the store.

Funko meanwhile seemingly produces their garbage for eternity, and as long as they keep making ‘em they gotta pay for them. I wouldn’t be suprised if they got themselves locked into some really shitty agreements as well.

Ahh, fair point. I didn’t consider how Fortnite’s model revolves around promotions selling skins for a limited time that may or may not come back, where as dead by daylight builds entire DLC packs around them. Not sure why DBD needs explicit approval to use licensed content in special modes like 2v8 when Fortnite skins are usable on basically any official or creator mode from the jump.

Similarly to Funko and what you said, that probably has more to do with DBD cheaping out and making shitty deals with license holders out of budget and ineptitude.

Hell, these fuckers went nuts buying everything they could and even made a museum out of their HQ once they finally got their 15 minutes of fame. They’ve probably sustained themselves off nothing but their hubris and the smell of their own farts after being super popular almost a decade ago.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

pollute the groundwater

what if the autism boom was because of ET hitting the landfills, and it's gotten worse with each generation of plastic nerd shit in dumps

 

[not william stenchever]

That's the funny part, you can't even burn them, they will just emit toxic gases. They are literally less than useless, any way to get rid of them just makes the problem of their existence even more of an issue.

Cities have tried banning PVC drain lines in structures and eventually gone back on the ban because if a structure fire is going on nobody is going to care about the chloride part of the PVC turning into fun gasses because structure fires are by default going to have some nasty gasses coming off as a result of combustion. Cities should ban ownership of funko pops because they are only a chemical hazard in the event of a fire and don't do useful things like facilitate sanitation.

 

[Ghostse]

I never understood Funko Pops, they always felt like an endgame for hyper materialism; ugly plastic refuse that offered nothing except to collect dust on your shelf and drain your wallet. Meanwhile, you can't afford a house or food to eat. Just disgusting all around.

I hate these fucking things and in general the people who collect them.

But I get the market.
They are cube decorations. There is just enough detail that you can tell what it is supposed to be (Oh yeah! I 'member!) but also completely sexless so there is no issues with HR like with your Anime Waifu Bunny Suit Alt. B Japan-only relase vinyl figure. There is no articulation so if they get knocked over by cleaning staff its no biggy. They are easy to clean. Its the ultimate consoomer collector slop.

Also, publicly admitting this decline is terrible PR, it’s basically announcing to everyone who hasn’t yet got the message that your product has gone out of fashion.

They had no choice, they had to release this in their investor report.

at least squishmallows (the unique ones) are kinda cute and make good pillows.

I think they are ugly, but yes - at least make decent pillows.

And while kids like me loved Beanie Babies, most of the real heat was generated by grown adults who were somehow convinced that these little bags of pellets were going to make them rich one day.

A person from my church turned their beanie babies into a house.
(or at least the downpayment for one)

 

[Noble Redditor]

Dang I just sent a bunch of my favorite Funko's to PSA to be graded.

Edit: username checks out!!
Edit 2: wow this is my most successful post ever on the site. Thanks so much!!!

 

[Dead Lion]

Ahh, fair point. I didn’t consider how Fortnite’s model revolves around promotions selling skins for a limited time that may or may not come back, where as dead by daylight builds entire DLC packs around them. Not sure why DBD needs explicit approval to use licensed content in special modes like 2v8 when Fortnite skins are usable on basically any official or creator mode from the jump.

Generally speaking the tighter the license agreements the cheaper they are.

Fortnite is fucking massive which probably helps. But they still had funny issues where a Wonder Woman emote involving whipping couldn't be blocked in a MLK memorial in game because of how the agreement was structured.

 

[Tanner Glass]

I'd like to know the sort of bad corporate decisions that lead to this.

Just unfiltered greed.

It's a small product that was never meant to be a big product. They could have been raking in a small, dedicated, niche profit year over year basically forever but some executive thought "what if we made and sold more of them?" without ever doing any kind of market research. Literally just line go up caveman thinking.

Here are (imo) the big mistakes they made
- Normal people (the market for 99.9% of this stuff) aren't going to want to have too many of these. One on a shelf, or on a desk at work, etc - but there's a real hard limit on how much you can really saturate a market.
- Some people might want a whole "set", but only of the "set" is worth having. I'm not talking like "oh people don't love Green Lantern in the Justice League", they made a ton of shit like "Guard in the Bespin Mining Facility", "Random creature xyz", or "Side Character in a show that's already a spinoff". The fucking Snow Monster from Star Wars that was only included because Mark Hamill got into an IRL car accident. The Golden Girls, and so on.
- Having your product tied to another product via licensing means it's limited by that products popularity. Rey Skywalker, Rose Trico, etc aren't very popular with anyone.
- and if that wasn't bad enough, limited editions. Hundreds if not thousands of "rare" variants. Color Swaps, limited runs limited to special events, misprints, glow in the darks, a whole slew of "there's only a 3% chance this one is in the box, and then a small chance the gamestop employee doesn't just steal it and put it up on ebay for $$$$ anyhow", and "xyz store exclusive". Nothing turns people off from collecting like making them jump through all manner of hoops for even a chance to collect something.

There was never any reason to mass produce 80% of what they make and while it's fun business wise to not give a shit if the product just sits on store shelves, they're finding out that those same businesses aren't able to buy new stock without getting rid of the old stock and are very unlikely to re-buy products they just had to clearance out.

 

[Male Idiot]

Ah, the most worthless of items, a funko pop.

Perhaps we can ship it to africa so they can be used as vudu dolls, ornaments on an islamists executioner block, or just build a minefield of them on the mexican border.

Or just build cwcville in real life from mashed funkos. The only building material autistic enough for the job.

 

[Kyria the Great]

Its the same that happened to Telltale games. They made story games with very basic graphics (basically just needed a writter, a couple of pajeets, and some unknown voice actors) and even had some hits, and they went bankrupt. Turns out that making a brand that just relies on licensing other IPs isn't that great of an idea.

Thank you for bringing up that company, I was about to if you didn't. Being a company that licenses others IP exclusively without having any homegrown lines is a killer for any company long term especially if people grow tired of IP and the licenses are expensive like DC or Marvel. I'm finally glad these things are dying out as it has the worst aspects of speculators, consoomers, and cultural bastardization.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I wouldn't have minded them so much if they were bobble heads.
one time I got K-9 from Doctor Who as a present
you can't really funko that design too much
Ver archivo adjunto 8148012

Claptrap is pretty hard to Funko, too. I couldn't even tell it was one until I looked at the box.

 

[grump]

I've never seen anyone with Funko Pops aside from Youtube Influencers. Space is at a premium for most people. Why go out of your way to fill it up with junk you'll never use when it will get that way naturally?

 

[Anasa Tristis]

A person from my church turned their beanie babies into a house.
(or at least the downpayment for one)

That's not surprising to hear. In a way the Beanie Baby thing was a poor man's housing bubble. A unique opportunity to buy and flip assets while the music played. Some savvy early players who knew how and when to quit made out like bandits. Idiots got hosed.

 

[Pat Mustard]

I suspect there's going to be a few very interesting books/documentaries/eight hour YouTube 'Pop slop' video essays coming out about this, and exactly the reasons this happened

every few years the beanie baby cycle repeats, useless cheap toys that become inexplicably popular then litter bargain bins for the rest of time, remember all those elastic band toys around the time of the 2008 recession?

So many physical gaming/other nerdy shops are going to go under lol, it would have been sad if they hadn't bet their continued existence on gay plastic toys that went out of style half a decade ago