LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. is an educational entertainment and electronics company based in Emeryville, California.
LeapFrog designs, develops, and markets technology-based learning products and related content for the education of children from infancy through grade school.
[4] The prototype utilized a Texas Instruments chip that was previously used by one of Wood's clients to develop talking greeting cards.
[5] That year, Wood resigned as a partner at Cooley LLP and founded LeapFrog Enterprises with Robert Lally.
[2] In March of that year, the company hired Brad Crawford, who formerly worked for Little Tikes, to oversee sales and manufacturing.
[9] In July, LeapFrog went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LF.
[12] Knowledge Universe retained majority control of the company following the initial public offering.
[2] Tom Kalinske was appointed LeapFrog chief executive officer following Michael Wood's retirement in February 2004.
[9] Kalinske had previously served as LeapFrog's chief executive officer from the company's acquisition by Knowledge Universe in 1997 until early 2002.
[17] The company released its Leapster2 portable learning system and its Didj educational handheld game console in August 2008.
[17] William "Bill" Chiasson replaced Jeffrey Katz as LeapFrog president and chief executive officer in March 2010.
[21] The LeapPad Explorer was designed for children aged four to nine and contained a five-inch touchscreen, camera, microphone, and both downloadable apps and cartridge-based games.
[29] In August 2015, the company announced LeapFrog Epic,[30] its new Android-based tablet for children, which was released in September 2015.
[58] Similar to other preschool content from PBS Kids, Nick Jr., and Playhouse Disney, LeapFrog is an early educational program designed for children in the age group of 2–7 years.
However, these videos would see the addition of two new major characters: Edison (a firefly previously seen in A Tad of Christmas Cheer) and Scout (a green dog introduced in 2007 as the company's mascot).
Scout would be spun-off into his own series in 2011, which introduced a new cast of characters that included Violet, Penny, Eli, and Axle.