Moonbug Entertainment

Who owns Moonbug Entertainment?

Moonbug is a wholly owned subsidiary of Candle Media, the private Los Angeles media company co-founded by Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs and backed by approximately $2 billion from Blackstone. Candle acquired Moonbug in November 2021.

What brands does Moonbug own?

Moonbug owns 29 children's intellectual properties. Its largest are CoComelon, Blippi, Morphle, Little Baby Bum, Little Angel, Gecko's Garage, Oddbods, and Supa Strikas, distributed across more than 150 platforms in 32 languages.

How much did Moonbug sell for?

Candle Media acquired Moonbug in November 2021 for a reported $2.75 billion, potentially reaching $3 billion with earn-out incentives. The official announcement did not confirm a figure.

Who founded Moonbug?

René Rechtman, former president of international at Maker Studios, and John Robson, former managing director at WildBrain, founded the company in London on February 9, 2018. It was originally registered as Project ABC Holdings Limited.

Is Moonbug profitable?

Moonbug does not publish standalone financial results as a private subsidiary. Its last disclosed figure was approximately $53.7 million in revenue for 2020, before the full-year effect of the CoComelon and Blippi acquisitions, and industry reporting describes it as financially healthier than most peers.

Will Moonbug be sold?

As of late 2026, press reports indicate Candle Media has explored a sale of Moonbug as part of its restructuring, but no transaction has been announced and a deal is not described as imminent. Moonbug remains a Candle subsidiary.

René Rechtman, previously president of international at Maker Studios and an executive at Disney, co-founded the business in London on February 9, 2018, as Project ABC Holdings Limited with John Robson, a former managing director at WildBrain. The company took the Moonbug name later that year. Early investors included The Raine Group and Felix Capital, which backed a thesis that children's content on YouTube was massively undermonetized relative to its audience size.

The acquisition program began with Little Baby Bum, an animated nursery-rhyme channel run by a husband-and-wife team outside London with about 16 million subscribers. Moonbug professionalized its publishing schedule and packaging and roughly doubled its viewership in nine months, validating the model. Purchases of Morphle TV and other preschool channels followed as the company raised successive rounds.

July 2020 was the inflection point. Moonbug simultaneously acquired CoComelon and Blippi, the two biggest independent children's properties on YouTube, and raised $120 million led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and Fertitta Capital, bringing total funding to $265 million. The deals lifted Moonbug past 235 million monthly subscribers and more than 7 billion average monthly views, making it the largest digital kids' media company globally.

In November 2021 Candle Media, the newly formed Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs venture backed by Blackstone, acquired Moonbug for a reported $2.75 billion rising toward $3 billion with earn-outs. Founders and management retained equity. Under Candle, Moonbug acquired the Little Angel franchise, signed the first creation and distribution partnership between the company and Disney Branded Television (producing Morphle and the Magic Pets in 2024), placed a CoComelon feature film into development, and began launching the Moonbug Channel, a linear feed of its properties, across EMEA operators including KPN in April 2026.

Moonbug operates in the most regulated audience segment in media. The 2019 FTC settlement requiring YouTube to treat children's content under COPPA rules reshaped monetization across every kids' channel, including Moonbug's, by restricting personalized advertising on child-directed video. The company has also faced periodic public criticism, most visibly around CoComelon, where parents and commentators argue that fast-paced preschool content may overstimulate toddlers; no regulator or clinical body has substantiated harm. Stevin John's pre-Blippi comedy material and the 2021 Blippi performer transition also generated press cycles, neither producing regulatory action.