Genius Brands
| Public corporation | |
| Traded as | OTCQB: |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | November 2013 |
| Founders | Andy Heyward |
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Key people
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| Products |
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| Brands |
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| Services | Licensing |
| Owners |
Andy Heyward Amy Moynihan Heyward |
| Divisions | Genius Brands Music Kid Genius Channel |
| Subsidiaries | A Squared Entertainment LLC Stan Lee Comics LLC (60%) |
| Website | gnusbrands |
Genius Brands International (GBI) is an entertainment company head by Andy Heyward and his wife, Amy Moynihan Heyward. The company was formed in a merger of Genius Brands International and A Squared Entertainment.
A couple of future A Squared Entertainment properties originated at Andy Heyward's previous company, DIC Entertainment. DIC signed a TV series production deal in July 2003 with Stan Lee's POW! Entertainment for Stan Lee's Secret Super Six property. While in 2006, DIC was in development on Secret Millionaires Club with Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett.
A Squared Entertainment (A2, A Squared) was formed by Heyward and his wife, Amy Moynihan Heyward, in 2009 as an animation company. The company had an initial four show celebrity-inspired cartoon slate to be seen on AOL starting in Q4 2009 with the last starting in 2010. The four shows would then switch from a webisode format of 26 episodes of three-to-five-minute to TV with 13 22-minute shows. The slate then consisted of Secret Millionaires Club, GiGi and The Green Team (working title), Little Martha (working title) and Kosmos. Kosmos was a series to be based on Carl Sagan's life as a famous astronomer. A2's first animated program was Secret Millionaires Club, which features an animated Buffett as a secret mentor to a group of enterprising children. Also, Martha & Friends with Martha Stewart and Gisele & the Green Team with Gisele Bundchen were created and launched by A Square.
In February 2010, A2 partnered with POW! Entertainment and Archie Comics to create the Stan Lee Comics joint venture for the Stan Lee's Super Seven franchise. On December 7, 2010, A Squared in conjunction with AOLkids.com and Gisele Bündchen launched Gisele & The Green Team webseries.
In April 2012, Stan Lee's Mighty 7 was slated to be developed into other media formats via A Squared Elxsi Entertainment LLC (A2E2). A2E2 was a joint-venture between A Squared Entertainment (A2) and Tata Elxsi formed in January 2011 which Elxsi ends in October 2012. Also in 2012, A2 took over Archies' ownership stake in Stan Lee Comics.
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