The company was originally based in Silicon Valley, but eventually relocated to North Richland Hills, Texas. The company was founded on May 9, 1994, as FUNimation Productions.
Fukunaga met with co-worker Daniel Cocanougher, whose family owned a feed mill in Decatur, Texas, and convinced Cocanougher's family to sell their business and serve as an investor for his company.
Hori proposed that if Fukunaga could start a production company and raise enough money, Toei Animation would license the rights to the Dragon Ball franchise to the United States. In the early 1990s, Japanese-born businessman Gen Fukunaga was approached by his uncle, Nagafumi Hori, who was working as a producer for Toei Company. The original FUNimation logo used from 1994 to 2005. The company's headquarters are located in Flower Mound, Texas. In August 2021, Funimation acquired the streaming service Crunchyroll. From 2017 to 2019, the Japanese conglomerate Sony owned a 95% stake in the company through its Sony Pictures Entertainment division (via Sony Pictures Television), and since 2019, Sony runs the company through a joint venture between two of its units: Sony Pictures Entertainment (via Sony Pictures Television) and Sony Music Entertainment Japan (via Aniplex).
It has licensed popular series, such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, Fruits Basket, Assassination Classroom, Cowboy Bebop, Tokyo Ghoul, and Code Geass among many others.įunimation was acquired by Navarre Corporation on in April 2011, Navarre sold Funimation to a group of investors that included Fukunaga for $24 million. Funimation is one of the leading distributors of anime and other foreign entertainment properties in North America. The company was founded on by Gen Fukunaga and his wife Cindy in Silicon Valley, with funding by Daniel Cocanougher and his family, who became investors in the company, which then relocated to North Richland Hills, Texas. Funimation Global Group, LLC is an American entertainment company that specializes in the dubbing and distribution of East Asian media, most notably Japanese anime.