IF Labs... Who Were They? Where Are They Now?

As far as I understand, they were merely a branch of Irwin in collaboration with Funimation that focused more on producing figures for collectors.

I started IF Labs for Funimation with Gen Fukunaga. It was an internal project initially based on the fact that Irwin did not want to product a more "McFarlane" like line of toys. At FUNimation we had already licensed the TV series figures to Irwin, but we had in our back pocket a separate license for the Movies. The idea was that we would produce a more upscale line ourselves and use that to spur Irwin to produce a higher quality figures and not rely so much on the old Bandai figure molds. The upside is that it worked. I hired Igor Fernandez from Infinite Mindz and Toxic Mom to produce the original sculpts. We used our great close relationships with Toei to get the designs approved included human like muscles and damage. This was controversial at the time. When we presented the line to Irwin and the early feedback we were getting from Toy Collectors, they came on board with the project. The first idea was the DBZ movie collection, but internally we moved fast and started the Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball lines as well. I often had to play bad cop in the Irwin relationship and push for fan centric issues, which Gen would then smooth over if I went too far. It was a great relationship with all of the Irwin brothers. We really loved those guys. They helped tremendously with package physical design, while we produced all the art in-house at Funimation. After the second round of figures, the IF Labs project was handed off to our inside licensing team, which was run by Bob Brennan and my wife Laura as well as a few others. Many don't know this, but Bob was the one that got Z on Cartoon Network. Those early few years, much of the licensing relationship with Toei and Shūeisha was run out of the Brennan families "Rock and Roll Country Club", Frank Lloyd Wright inspired old radio station studio and offices in Montgomery Al. The legendary station was WBAM, and is a whole fun story of itself. Gen's wife Cindy was Bob's brother. Back in '97ish occasionally some early fan would see all of the Dragon Ball merchandise laying around the station and leave in disbelief that this was happening there. It was an amazing ride, I stayed with the company until 2007 and my wife retired in 2020.

Well that was unexpected and amazing