Crunchyroll is owned by Sony (Japan, NYSE: SONY), which acquired the brand on 9 August 2021 for $1.18 billion.[1][2] Crunchyroll was founded in 2006 in the United States and was independent until 2021.
Evidence: Sony Group Corporation Annual Report on Form 20-F filed 2026-06-18, SEC EDGAR, 18 June 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Crunchyroll began as an unlicensed anime site started by university students and became the licensed global home of the format. Sony acquired it from AT&T in 2021 for $1.175 billion and merged its own Funimation service into it. Anime distribution had long been fragmented by territory and delayed by months, and simultaneous subtitled release is the change that turned it into a mainstream global business.
Sentences about Crunchyroll from Sony's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
In particular, Crunchyroll is an important growth pillar for the Pictures segment and is striving to reach a broader audience through expanding touchpoints with fans, such as e-commerce for anime merchandise, anime events, mobile games, and a manga application, in addition to its streaming service.
He also noted that anime is an important growth sector for Sony, introducing various initiatives centered on anime, and announcing that the DTC anime platform Crunchyroll has surpassed 21 million subscribers as of the end of March 2026.
Crunchyroll serves more than 21 million paid subscribers globally as of the end of March 2026.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
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Sony controls 8 brands on Brandtree, 2 of them in internet & digital.
The 37 brands in streaming video on Brandtree belong to 25 owners. The largest is AMC Networks, with 5.
Sony is a publicly listed company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1946. Brandtree records 8 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: SONY.
Sony was founded in a bombed-out Tokyo department store in 1946 and became a consumer electronics giant before buying its way into Hollywood and music. Entertainment now produces more of its profit than electronics, which is a reversal of what the name still suggests to most people.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Crunchyroll among them.
Sony acquired Crunchyroll from AT&T for $1.175 billion and merged its own Funimation service into it. Crunchyroll had begun as an unlicensed anime site run by university students; simultaneous licensed release is what turned anime into a mainstream global business.
The parent company of Crunchyroll is Sony, a publicly listed company headquartered in Japan.
Crunchyroll originated in the United States in 2006, but it is owned today by Sony, which is headquartered in Japan. So Crunchyroll is an American-origin brand under Japanese ownership.
Sony completed its acquisition of Crunchyroll on 9 August 2021, after announcing the deal on 9 December 2020. The deal was valued at $1.18 billion (enterprise value).
Crunchyroll was an independent company from its founding in 2006 until Sony acquired it in 2021.
Yes. As of 11 October 2026, Crunchyroll is still owned by Sony. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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