Geenius is a K-pop girl group that almost didn’t exist. The group is managed by HOMe (house of music entertainment), which was founded by a combination of Blockberry Creative executives and the music production company, “sure place.” There is some apprehension about this, as Blockberry Creative had effectively imploded after its mismanagement of the K-pop girl group, Loona. However, sure place was founded by “Sure Kim,” a man who worked in A&R for the Loona Flip That mini-album, in addition to, among other things, producing and songwriting on the Loona songs “Flip That,” “The Journey,” and “Need U.” As such, sure place represents a fresh start to five ladies who had practiced a long time for their debut, even if the lingering and ambiguous connection to Blockberry is concerning. So here is the complete answer to when exactly Yeyoung, Sion, Mika, Zoe, and Andamiro made their debut as Geenius at HOMe and sure place.
Geenius Made Their Debut on January 5, 2024 with Voyage
Geenius debuted on January 5, 2024 at noon KST with the single album, Voyage. “Voyage,” the song, was composed by Sure Kim, Yeori (Take a Chance), and BORAN; arranged by ForestIn and Sure Kim; and had lyrics provided by all the members of Geenius, along with BORAN and Sure Kim. The “Voyage” music video was released at the time of debut. Later on January 5, 2024, at 5:15 p.m. KST, Geenius would perform for the first time on television, with “Voyage” on Music Bank. The group then surprised fans by performing “Voyage” live on “it’s Live” YouTube on January 6, 2024.
Geenius social media began posting on December 20, 2023 KST, and the five members of the group were revealed across December 21, 2023 KST. Prior to debut, reporting from South Korea confirmed that Yeyoung, Sion, Mika, Zoe, and Andamiro had trained together since 2018, more recently at Blockberry Creative and at Polaris Entertainment before that. In fact, these members (and others) were originally intended to debut at Blockberry Creative as a girl group called Bebez. At one point, Bebez was apparently targeting a debut in 2022 before plans changed at Blockberry, and then once Chuu was expelled from Loona, it began a long period of turmoil at Blockberry that seemingly ruined the company. It had seemed unlikely that Bebez would ever debut, so it is fortuitous that five of its planned members could remain together and finally debut.
As we have described in detail elsewhere, some members of Geenius were known to the public prior to this group. Notably, Yeyoung and Sion competed on survival competition series Girls Planet 999 in 2021, and Zoe, who speaks fluent Italian and is originally from Milan, competed on the 2017-2018 survival competition series, Mixnine.
Information about the Blockberry executives involved at HOMe, including whether they are truly current or merely former executives, is unfortunately lacking at the moment. However, it is further known that IT company 더옴 and former Major9 CEO Hwang Jung Moon contributed to beginning Geenius.
In summary, Geenius made their debut on January 5, 2024 at noon KST with Voyage, and the group consists of five members that had previously planned to debut as Bebez. For more about the group, check out how old the Geenius members currently are and what we know about their leader.