Crunchyroll, LLC (previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022) is an American entertainment company owned by Sony Group Corporation as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan (through Aniplex).
The company was founded in May 1994 as Funimation Productions by Gen Fukunaga and his wife Cindy Brennan in Silicon Valley, with funding from Daniel Cocanougher and his family, who became investors in the company, which then relocated to North Richland Hills, later to Flower Mound and after that in Coppell. Funimation was one of the leading distributors of anime and other foreign entertainment properties in North America. It 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, and Tokyo Ghoul among many others.
Funimation was acquired by Navarre Corporation in May 2005; in April 2011, Navarre sold Funimation to a group of investors that included Fukunaga for $24 million. From 2017 to 2019, the Japanese conglomerate Sony owned a 95% stake in the company through its Sony Pictures Television division. In March 2022, the company itself was rebranded into Crunchyroll, LLC after acquiring the streaming service of the same name in August 2021, but the Funimation brand currently co-exists with Crunchyroll and remains in active use.
