Funko, Inc.

Funko was founded in 1998 by toy collector Mike Becker at his home in Snohomish, Washington. He started the business after failing to find an affordable coin bank of the Big Boy Restaurants mascot, instead licensing the rights to make his own coin banks from a Big Boy franchise in Michigan. The coin banks failed to sell and the franchise filed for bankruptcy protection, but Funko remained in business after licensing the rights to bobbleheads for Austin Powers, which sold 80,000 units. After this, some of the first characters that Funko sold were the Grinch, Tony the Tiger, and Cheerios mascot, the honeybee. In 2005, Becker sold Funko to Brian Mariotti who moved its offices to Lynnwood, Washington, and significantly expanded its licensed product lines. In 2011, Funko began selling their Pop! Vinyl line of figurines. By 2012, the company had sold more than $20 million of merchandise.

The company was sold to Fundamental Capital, a private equity firm, in 2013 to raise funds. ACON Investments, LLC announced in late 2015 that it had acquired Funko from Fundamental Capital, LLC, but would keep current staff and the head of the company.

By late 2016 it had outgrown its original headquarters in Everett and announced plans to move into a downtown building with more space and a retail store. Funko acquired British toymaker Underground Toys, also its European distributor, in early 2017. Funko opened its new headquarters and 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m 2 ) flagship store in downtown Everett on August 19, 2017. Funko was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange on November 2, 2017, but suffered the worst initial public offering of the 21st century, with shares falling by 40 percent and only raising $125 million.

In June 2017, Funko acquired the fashion accessories line Loungefly.

The company opened its second storefront in November 2019, located in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It has 40,000 square feet (3,700 m 2 ) of space and includes life-size statues and movie "sets".

In June 2022, Funko acquired Austin, Texas-based Mondo, a high-end pop culture company.

In 2022, Funko expanded its global presence by opening its first franchise store outside of the United States in Dubai Hills Mall, UAE. This store was followed by two additional stores in 2023, one at Dubai Mall and the other at Reem Mall in Abu Dhabi. All stores are operated and managed by Monkey Distribution, Funko's official distributor in the MENA region.

In 2023, Funko opened a store front in partnership with rapper Snoop Dogg called the “Dogg House.” Located next to So-Fi Stadium in California, the store sold exclusive Funko Pop Vinyl figures and had a Funko themed mural.

In March 2023, Funko announced that an excess of old inventory would be disposed of due to limited warehouse capacity.

In September 2025, Funko would surpass 1,000,000,000 pop vinyl figures being sold.

In November 2025, James Lucas of The Gamer website voiced concerns that Funko may not last much longer due to over production and poor sales. In the previous 9 months, they suffered a net loss of $68.1 million dollars.