Freak’n Genius builds an animation platform and achieved early success with its YAKiT app, attracting large media companies as customers. The company plans to relocate operations to Las Vegas and rebuild a new team there. Founder and CEO Kyle Kesterson is moving to Las Vegas and joining Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project community. Freak’n Genius was founded in November 2011 and was an inaugural member of the 2012 Kinect Accelerator program. The company currently employs two people and has raised $1.25 million to date. Management says the platform will power "instant cartoon and UGC creators" tied to popular shows and characters in the near future. Freak’n Genius develops YAKiT, a mobile app that lets users manipulate the mouths of people, pets and other objects to create humorous videos. The company rolled out YAKiT 3.0, which adds an in-app feed with channels of user-created videos, new animated stickers, and social features such as commenting and reaction mechanisms. The refreshed app also includes messaging and social sharing capabilities beyond its original JibJab-like functionality. The team represented Seattle at CES and has produced viral Seahawks videos. Freak’n Genius was founded in November 2011 and was an inaugural member of the 2012 Kinect Accelerator program. The company’s total funding stands at $775,000 following the latest raise. Freak'n Genius builds Kinect-powered animation software that lets people inhabit virtual animated characters and produce short comedic videos shareable on the web. The company graduated from Microsoft’s Kinect Accelerator and operates out of the SURF Incubator in downtown Seattle. The founding team includes CEO Kyle Kesterson (co-founder of Giant Thinkwell), sketch comedian Clayton Weller, and technologist Dwayne Mercredi; they recently hired their first engineer and plan to add two more. Freak'n Genius has been developing politically themed animated shorts with a group of comedians and will release new content on its YouTube channel. The startup has leveraged accelerator connections to engage with partners and was invited to Nike’s Apparel Innovation Hackathon. Financially, the company turned down an acquisition and a corporate investment before completing a new angel raise.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jul 2014