Prime Focus is the world’s largest independent visual effects and animation studio, but it has quietly evolved into something broader - an integrated platform that now spans creative services, an AI content engine, and selective film production. Founded in a Mumbai garage in 1997 by Namit Malhotra, the company grew through a series of bold acquisitions - a UK-listed firm in 2006, Hollywood post-production houses in 2007, and the transformative merger with DNEG in 2014 - that turned a single editing room into a global operation with over 9,900 people across 24 locations. The recurring pattern is visible throughout its history: buy or build a capability in one market, then use the cash flows and client relationships from that move to fund the next expansion, whether into new geographies, new technology, or new parts of the content value chain. # Business segments Three engines at different stages - a creative-services powerhouse that dominates Hollywood VFX, an AI platform built from acquired technology and internal tools, and a co-production arm that turns content investments into a natural hedge - each constructed on the capabilities and client trust of the one before. ## 1. Creative Services: where the Oscars are won and the relationships are built **DNEG and ReDefine together form the group’s creative core - a premium visual effects and animation studio that turns director vision into screen reality for the world’s biggest film and episodic franchises, earning eight Academy Awards along the way.** - **Studios sign multi-year deals, not just project contracts** - DNEG signed a multiyear services agreement with Netflix, connecting its global footprint to Netflix’s programming slate, and its episodic VFX team has won three Primetime Emmys and a BAFTA TV Craft Award. That kind of recurring, high-visibility revenue stream comes from being embedded in a studio’s production pipeline rather than bidding job by job. - **A boutique sibling captures the mid-market** - ReDefine operates inside the DNEG Group with an agile, show-by-show approach, using DNEG’s technology backbone but designing solutions tailored to each project’s budget and creative needs. It runs studios across North America, Europe, and nine Indian cities, which gives it cost flexibility that pure-play Western houses cannot match. - **The studio floor is part of the offer** - in 2022, DNEG acquired eight Hollywood-designed soundstages in Mumbai’s Film City along with a full suite of post-production services including digital intermediate, camera rental, and IMAX mastering, so a production can walk in with a script and leave with a finished master. - **Animation reach expanded through acquisition** - in mid-2026, a DNEG subsidiary bought a 48.45% stake in Ánima Kitchent, a Spanish animation studio with established children’s brands and a €24.9 million public-private partnership with the Spanish government, adding 2D and 3D animation production capacity inside Europe. ## 2. AI & Technology: the platform that turns content libraries into reusable assets **Brahma AI is a secure, enterprise-grade AI platform purpose-built for media companies that want to create, manage, and localise content at scale - it is the group’s bet that every studio and broadcaster will eventually need an AI-native content operating system.** - **Born from a merger of creative technology and AI** - Brahma was formed in early 2025 by combining the DNEG Group’s creative technology portfolio (including Ziva’s digital-human simulation tools) with Metaphysic Inc., an AI company whose investors include Liberty Global and Rakuten Capital. The combined entity has over 800 engineers and creative technologists, and was valued at US$1.43 billion post-transaction. - **Three product layers cover the full content lifecycle** - Brahma AI Core is the infrastructure that governs enterprise content libraries with conversational search and workflow orchestration; Brahma AI Studio creates photoreal digital avatars, voice clones, and localised versions of content; Brahma AI Labs is the innovation layer that co-develops new capabilities with strategic partners like Google Cloud. - **Trust infrastructure is the differentiator** - the platform embeds C2PA watermarking and role-based access controls, which matters because media companies will not put their crown-jewel content libraries onto an AI platform that cannot prove provenance and prevent leakage. It already manages over 100 million assets and 100 petabytes of archives. - **Early traction is broadening beyond entertainment** - Brahma has signed its first customer in Southeast Asia, is deepening contracts in sports, and has early healthcare engagements for digital physicians and clinical training avatars. The pattern is multi-year deals that start with a proof-of-concept and expand into multi-product relationships across Brahma Core and Brahma Studio. ## 3. Production: the co-production arm that hedges content investment with services revenue **Prime Focus Studios selectively co-finances tentpole films and series, structuring deals so that the production spend flows back into the group’s own VFX and animation studios - turning content risk into a services opportunity.** - **Co-production, not speculation** - the studio partners with major distributors and rights-holders on projects that are already greenlit, such as *The Angry Birds Movie 3* with Paramount and Rovio, and *Animal Friends* with Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment. It is not originating films from scratch; it is attaching itself to projects that need VFX and animation at scale. - **The pipeline creates a natural hedge** - because Prime Focus Studios’ projects generate VFX and animation services revenue for DNEG, the group earns fee income even before a film recoups its production investment, reducing the downside of content bets. - **The slate is built around event-scale properties** - key releases include *Ramayana* (described as the biggest-budget Indian film ever), *CoComelon The Movie* with Universal and DreamWorks, and *The Angry Birds Movie 3*, all of which are effects-heavy productions that will consume significant internal VFX capacity. # Group structure and partners **Prime Focus Ltd is the Indian-listed parent, but the operating engine is DNEG S.a.r.l. in Luxembourg - an 88.28%-owned subsidiary that holds the creative, technology, and production businesses and has attracted strategic investors at multi-billion-dollar valuations.** - The group reports as a single operating segment - integrated post-production - under Indian accounting standards, reflecting how deeply the creative, technology, and production verticals are interwoven. - DNEG S.a.r.l. is the central material subsidiary, with total assets of US$935.9 million and turnover of US$425.7 million for FY2024-25, and it houses the key operating entities: Double Negative Limited in the UK, DNEG North America in the US, DNEG Australia, and DNEG India Media Services. - Two major external investors have backed the group: United Al Saqer Group of Abu Dhabi invested US$200 million in the DNEG Group in 2024 at an enterprise valuation above US$2 billion, and later put a further US$25 million into Brahma; Novator Capital was proposed as an allottee of a 14.40% stake in Prime Focus Ltd via a preferential allotment and share swap in mid-2025. - In mid-2025, the group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Maharashtra to develop a new entertainment ecosystem in Mumbai, proposing an investment of approximately US$400 million in production studios, live entertainment facilities, theme parks, and hospitality infrastructure.