Booq was founded by Thorsten Trotzenberg, a German native, product design graduate of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and founding partner of 3Gen, now the world's leading maker of hand-held skin cancer screening devices marketed under the DermLite® brand. Booq started in 2002 as a garage operation based in Burbank, California, and the privately held family company moved to the Sierra Madre, a creative community in the foothills above Los Angeles, in 2003.