Streaming giants Crunchyroll announced on Wednesday that Sony’s Funimation will accquire them from AT&T for a price of US$1.175 billion. This amount will be paid in cash while the deal is closed.

We are excited to join our peers at Sony and Funimation.

There are many questions we can’t answer yet, but we’re excited by the prospect of this combination. https://t.co/R6ACXYHRHL

— Crunchyroll (@Crunchyroll) December 9, 2020

Reports had come out earlier this year mentioning that AT&T had offerend Crunchyroll to Sony and other potential buyers for a price of US$ 1.5 billion. While Sony was reported to have balked at the price first, it was later reported that Sony was indeed in final stages of negotiations to acquire Crunchyroll.

Both Sony and Crunchyroll have not provided addiional details regarding the deal.

Crunchyroll, Inc. is an American distributor, publisher, production and licensing company focused on streaming anime, manga, and dorama. It was founded in 2006 by a group of Berkeley (University of California) graduates. The platform now has 3 million subscribers and 90 million registered users.

Sony Pictures Television Networks acquired a majority stake in Funimation for US$143 million in 2017. Funimation ended its content-sharing partnership with Crunchyroll in November 2018, and then signed a first-look streaming deal with Hulu in December 2018, ANN reported.

In addition to Funimation, Sony owns the subsidiary anime production companies A-1 Pictures and CloverWorks through Aniplex.