Genius (company)

Genius (stylized in all caps) is an American digital media company founded on August 27, 2009, by Tom Lehman, Ilan Zechory, and Mahbod Moghadam. The company's eponymous website serves as a database for song lyrics, news stories, sources, poetry, and documents, in which users can provide annotations and interpretations for. Originally launched as Rap Genius, with a focus on hip-hop music, the company attracted the attention and support of celebrities, and venture capital enabling further growth. The site expanded in 2014 to cover other forms of media, such as pop, literature, and R&B, and added an annotation-embedded platform. That same year, an iPhone app was released. To reflect these new goals, the site relaunched as Genius in July 2014. An Android version was released in August 2015, and in 2016 and 2017, the company began producing music-focused original video content and hosting live events and concerts.