The company was founded on June 14, 1994 by Japanese-born businessman
Gen Fukunaga.
[9] Fukunaga's uncle, Nagafumi Hori, was working as a producer for
Toei Company; Hori approached Gen about licensing
Dragon Ball to the United States. He proposed that if Fukunaga could start a production company and raise enough money,
Toei Animation would license the rights to the franchise. 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. The company was originally formed in
Silicon Valley, California as Funimation Productions in 1994, but eventually relocated to
Flower Mound, Texas, located near
Fort Worth.
[10] They initially collaborated with other companies on
Dragon Ball, such as BLT Productions,
Ocean Studios,
Pioneer and
Saban Entertainment. By 1998, after two aborted attempts to bring the
Dragon Ball franchise to a U.S. audience via
first-run syndication, it finally found success through
Cartoon Network's broadcast of the
Dragon Ball Z series on its
Toonami programming block, and the
Dragon Ball phenomenon quickly grew in the United States as it had elsewhere. This led Funimation to license other anime to the U.S.