Chicken Soup for the Soul buys Ashton Kutcher’s company for $15M

The Cos Cob-based Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Inc. has fully acquired A Plus, a digital media company co-founded and chaired by actor Ashton Kutcher, for $15 million in cash and stock.

A Plus was co-founded by Kutcher in 2014 as an online video news platform specializing in positive-focused journalism. CSS Entertainment acquired a majority ownership of the company in 2016.

“As we ramp up series production, we expect to rely even more heavily on the A Plus distribution capability,” said William J. Rouhana, Jr., CSS Entertainment”™s chairman and CEO. “By eliminating video view distribution costs, this acquisition is expected to result in $5 million of cost savings in 2019 and will enhance our ability to increase the commitments we make to advertisers and increase our number of original series.”

Kutcher will remain as A Plus”™ chairman of the board. “The full integration of A Plus and CSS Entertainment makes perfect sense to further CSS Entertainment’s content creation and distribution strategies,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the team to continue to grow CSS Entertainment with A Plus as a wholly-owned part of the company.”