The Bella Sara Brand

The worldwide success of the Bella Sara brand is owed to its original vision by Gitte Brændgaard, the founding company, Conceptcard ApS of Denmark, and its contract with American game company, Hidden City Games.

Gitte Brændgaard
Gitte Brændgaard was a social worker in Denmark who worked with emotionally troubled youth. Of her three children, only her son liked to collect cards such as Pokémon; her two daughters, Sara and Freja, were uninterested. Wanting to create a card series that would appeal to young girls, Gitte designed Bella, a card series named after Sara's first horse. In-line with the focus of her former career, the series would feature socially conscious, positive messages and imagination-building game play, designed to uplift girls.

During an interview with The New York Times, Gitte explained that, “Girls like something beautiful, something nice to look at. My purpose in making the sayings on the cards is to inspire children to think in a loving, caring and joyful way, to believe it is O.K. to show your feelings.”

ConceptCard ApS
Conceptcard was founded on July 11, 2005 in Svendborg, Denmark by Gitte Braendgaard and Poul Villadsen, each of whom held the title of director. A third director, Poul Skaarup Villadsen, joined the two on August 8. At last, the first Bella series, "Bella Silver", was released in September with a second series, "Bella Gold" following in December.

In March 13, Conceptcard introduced Bella to the United States during the 2006 Game Manufacturers Association at Las Vegas, Nevada. Here, Peter Adkison of Hidden City Games came across the card series and contacted the company to work out a contract. Around the same time, "Bella Copper" was released.

On June 12, 2006, Conceptcard  entered a 5-year licensing contract with Hidden City Games to distribute and market the new series, Bella Sara. Bella's final series, "Bella Wise Warriors", was released in October. That same month, the new Bella Sara "First Series" was distributed in North America and met with massive success, selling out by April of 2007.

For the next 5 years, Conceptcard worked with Hidden City Games to turn Bella Sara into a worldwide success with special Events, Merchandise from licensers around the world, and an always-updating Classic Bella Sara Website and Bella Sara Adventures.

Hidden City Games
Hidden City Games was founded in 2004 in Seattle, Washington by Peter Adkison, former director of the card company Wizards of the Coast.

The Bella Sara Company LLC
When the licensing contract ended, Gitte and her husband, Henrik Heindorf, created The Bella Sara Company LLC in Seattle, Washington to continue distributing Conceptcard's work.

The Bella Sara Company ApS
First introduced to the North American market in 2007 by Hidden City Entertainment, Inc., the newly renamed Bella Sara quickly expanded into an international children’s entertainment property. Since its introduction, Bella Sara has broadened its family of products from trading cards and virtual world (playable at BellaSara.com) to DVDs, toys, books, video games, arts and crafts, games and puzzles, apparel, back to school and more in the North American and International markets. The cards were also published in several languages around the world, including French, German, and Italian.

The franchise was intended to be an alternative to competitive trading card games such as Pokemon, or Yu-Gi-Oh. Catered towards girls, the cards combined a mythical world of magical horses with game play. The franchise would grow to be popular in both Scandinavia and the United States, and also gained popularity worldwide, and received numerous awards such as the “National Parenting Center Seal of Approval” for 2009, and "Toy of the Year" and the “Seal of Excellence” from Creative Child Magazine for 2008 and 2009.