*By Bridgette Webb*
Kids' programmer Genius Brands just secured $4.5 million in new funding, but the CEO is already fixing his gaze on Disney.
"Disney is the giant gorilla in that space," CEO Andy Heyward said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar.
Heyward said the new funding, [announced](https://www.gnusbrands.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/993/genius-brands-international-raises-4-5-million-in-funding) Wednesday and led by Robert Wolf, former CEO of UBS Americas and founder of 32 Ventures, will be used to push the company's new animated series, "Rainbow Rangers," which will debut November 5 on Nick Jr.
"We have tried to create a niche, which is what we call content with a purpose," he said. "Every program that we bring forth has to have some enrichment to it and some value other than just the entertainment alone."
Genius already has 20 licensing partners lined up for "Rainbow Rangers" and 300 merchandise products in the making, including toys, dolls, school supplies, and clothing.
The funding news arrives as competition in the kids entertainment space accelerates. The media industry has been hit with a wave of M&A activity this year, with AT&T snapping up Time Warner and Disney purchasing the assets of 21st Century Fox.
Heyward believes the ripple effect of those acquisitions will reshape the whole industry, but he isn't rushing to join the fray ー at least not immediately.
"We're not in the position where we are going to sell the company today ー at some point, we may," he said.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/genius-brand-rakes-in-4-5-million-to-boost-new-animated-series).
Mario Schlosser, CEO and co-founder of Oscar Health, spoke to Cheddar about the future of healthcare and insurance in the United States after the company went public.
Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock, discussed how the online home goods retailer succeeded on a combination of pandemic-era buying habits and a red hot housing market.
Google says it won’t develop new ways to follow individual users across the internet after it phases out existing ad tracking technology from Chrome browsers in an upcoming overhaul aimed at tightening up privacy.
Singer Grimes raked in $5.8 million over the weekend selling digital art that can only be accessed through NFTs, an increasingly popular way to trade in onlineartwork.
State Representative Marcus C. Evans, Jr. from Chicago filed amendments to an Illinois bill that would further ban games considered to be too violent from reaching the hands of minors.
German carmaker Volvo on Tuesday announced that it will transition its entire model line-up to fully electric by 2030. T
Susan Lucas Collins, global head of healthcare services at cloud communications company Twilio, talked to Cheddar about providing tools necessary to help smooth out the somewhat chaotic vaccine rollout in the United States.
Wellness guru Deepak Chopra and fitness wearables company Fitbit have teamed up in an exclusive partnership called the Mindful Method.
Spacewalking astronauts have installed support frames at the International Space Station for new solar panels arriving later this year.
Following the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the widespread SolarWinds cyberattack, cybersecurity experts are pushing the need for private businesses and federal agencies to cooperate closely to prevent future such breaches.
