Quarterly report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)

1. Organization and Business

v3.20.1
1. Organization and Business
3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2020
Accounting Policies [Abstract]  
Organization and Business

Note 1: Organization and Business

 

Organization and Nature of Business

 

Genius Brands International, Inc. (“we,” “us,” “our,” or the “Company”) is a global content and brand management company that creates and licenses multimedia content. Led by experienced industry personnel, we distribute our content in all formats as well as a broad range of consumer products based on our characters. In the children's media sector, our portfolio features “content with a purpose” for toddlers to tweens, which provides enrichment as well as entertainment. New intellectual property titles include the preschool property Rainbow Rangers, which debuted in November 2018 on Nickelodeon and which was renewed for a second season and preschool property Llama Llama, which debuted on Netflix in January 2018 and was renewed by Netflix for a second season. Our library titles include the award winning Baby Genius, adventure comedy Thomas Edison's Secret Lab® and Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaires Club, created with and starring iconic investor Warren Buffett which is distributed across our Genius Brands Network on Comcast’s Xfinity on Demand, AppleTV, Roku, Amazon Fire, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Cox, Dish, Sling and Zumo as well as Connected TV. We are also developing an all-new animated series, Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten with Stan Lee's Pow! Entertainment.

 

In addition, we act as licensing agent for Penguin Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House LLC who owns or controls the underlying rights to Llama Llama, leveraging our existing licensing infrastructure to expand this brand into new product categories, new retailers, and new territories.

 

The Company commenced operations in 2006, assuming all the rights and obligations of its then Chief Executive Officer, under an Asset Purchase Agreement between the Company and Genius Products, Inc., in which the Company obtained all rights, copyrights, and trademarks to the brands “Baby Genius,” “Kid Genius,” “123 Favorite Music” and “Wee Worship,” and all then existing productions under those titles. In 2011, the Company reincorporated in Nevada and changed its name to Genius Brands International, Inc. (the “Reincorporation”). In connection with the Reincorporation, the Company changed its trading symbol to “GNUS.”

 

In 2013, the Company entered into an Agreement and Plan of Reorganization (the “Merger Agreement”) with A Squared Entertainment LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“A Squared”), A Squared Holdings LLC, a California limited liability company and sole member of A Squared (the “Parent Member”), and A2E Acquisition LLC, its newly formed, wholly-owned Delaware subsidiary (“Acquisition Sub”). Upon closing of the transactions, A Squared, as the surviving entity, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company.

 

Liquidity

 

Historically, the Company has incurred net losses. For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and March 31, 2019, the Company reported net losses of 5,835,944 and $5,007,482, respectively. The Company reported net cash used in operating activities of $995,517 and $1,213,240 for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and March 31, 2019, respectively. As of March 31, 2020, the Company had an accumulated deficit of $71,883,079 and total stockholders’ equity of $4,387,868. At March 31, 2020, the Company had current assets of $10,092,077, including cash and cash equivalents of $2,760,048 and current liabilities of $19,290,900. The Company had negative working capital of $9,198,823 as of March 31, 2020, compared to negative working capital of $3,650,136 as of December 31, 2019.

 

Warrant Exercise Agreement

 

On January 22, 2020, the Company entered into a private transaction (the “Private Transaction”) pursuant to a Warrant Exercise Agreement (the “Agreement”) with the holder of the Company’s existing warrants (the “Original Warrants”). The Original Warrants were originally issued on October 3, 2017, to purchase an aggregate of 500,000 shares of Common Stock, at an exercise price of $3.90 per share and were to expire in October 2022.

 

Pursuant to the Agreement, the holder of the Original Warrants and the Company agreed that such Original Warrant holder would exercise its Original Warrants in full and the Company would amend the Original Warrants to reduce the exercise price thereof to $0.34 (the average closing price of the common stock (as reflected on Nasdaq.com) for the five trading days immediately preceding the signing of the Agreement) (the “Amended Exercise Price”). The Company received approximately $170,000 from the exercise of the Original Warrants.

 

Secured Convertible Note and Warrant Private Placement

 

On March 11, 2020, the Company and certain accredited investors (each an “Investor” and collectively, the “Investors”) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the “SPA”) pursuant to which the Company agreed to sell and issue (1) Senior Secured Convertible Notes to the Investors in the aggregate principal amount of $13,750,000 (each, a “Note” and collectively, the “2020 Convertible Notes”) and $11,000,000 funding amount (reflecting an original issue discount of $2,750,000) and (2) warrants to purchase 65,476,190 shares of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.001 per share (the “Common Stock”), exercisable for a period of five years at an initial exercise price of $0.26 per share (each a “Warrant” and collectively, the “Warrants”), for consideration consisting of (i) a cash payment of $7,000,000, and (ii) full recourse cash secured promissory notes payable by the Investors to the Company (each, an “Investor Note” and collectively, the “Investor Notes”) in the principal amount of $4,000,000 (the “Investor Notes Principal”) (collectively, the “Financing”). Andy Heyward, the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, participated as an Investor and invested $1,000,000 in connection with the Financing, all of which was paid at the closing and not pursuant to an Investor Note.

 

The closing of the sale and issuance of the 2020 Convertible Notes, the Warrants and the Placement Agent Warrants described below in Note 15 occurred on March 17, 2020 (the “Closing Date”). The maturity date of the 2020 Convertible Notes is September 30, 2021 and the maturity date of the Investor Notes is March 11, 2060.

 

2020 Convertible Notes can be converted at the investor’s option into Common Stock at the conversion rate of $1.375 per share to be adjusted to $0.21 per share upon receipt of stockholder approval and subject to certain other adjustments, according to the terms of the Notes (the “Conversion Price”). On May 15, 2020, the Company received the necessary stockholder approval in connection with the Nasdaq proposals described below in Note 10. As a result, the conversion price of the 2020 Convertible Notes and the exercise price of the Warrants were each reduced to $0.21.

 

2020 Convertible Notes can be converted at the Company’s option, provided certain conditions are met, into Common Stock at the lower of the Conversion Price and 85% of the average of the five lowest daily weighted average prices of Company’s shares during the measuring period, according to the terms of the Notes.