SINGAPORE BASED VISTAS MEDIA CAPITAL FORAYS INTO ANIMATION AND VFX, ACQUIRES A MAJORITY STAKE IN PAPERBOAT DESIGN STUDIOS
GrowthBeats
10th November 2021, Singapore: Singapore-based media and entertainment-related investments company, Vistas Media Capital, today announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Paperboat Design Studios, an animation and design company based out of India, for an undisclosed amount. The studio, with more than 250 full time employees across offices in Mumbai and Hyderabad, will help stride Vistas Media Capital’s growing media ecosystem that spans across film and video content, NFT, gaming and metaverse.
The move reflects VMC’s ongoing commitment to expand its value chain of media, entertainment, and related technologies. This deal comes at the heels of a newly announced film project between Golden Ratio Films (GRF) – a wholly owned subsidiary of VMC and US-based production company Appian Way Productions last month.
Established over a decade ago, Paperboat Design Studios has created animation and design work, and produced live-action film for a diverse clientele. The studio also offers VFX and CGI services through its majorly owned subsidiary Occult Studios, based out of Mumbai. Some of the major clients of Paperboat and Occult include Disney India, Discovery Kids, McCann, World Bank, Coca Cola, Cadburys, Nestle, Burger King, and Reebok.
Abhayanand Singh, Group CEO, Vistas Media Capital said, “Paperboat is a team of passionate, talented and creative people, with a proven track record in animation and VFX. We welcome them to the Vistas eco-system and hope to have a synergistic relationship to grow the business beyond India across content, gaming and metaverse.”
“We are extremely excited about being a part of Vistas Media Capital as it gives us an opportunity to explore exponential growth across genres and markets. The capital infused will be used to expand the team, create original IPs, and cross synergize other verticals with them. The business and its offerings are at an inflection point of massive explosion in the post COVID world, across digital and traditional media.” said Soumitra Ranade, CEO and Co-Founder of Paperboat Design Studios.
Paperboat has worked on several popular television series including Bandbudh aur Budbak and Fukrey Boyzz. The studio also worked on the 2D animated feature film, Bombay Rose, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 and was the first Indian animation to open for the Venice Film Critics’ Week. Bombay Rose received critical acclamation for its animation quality and was the winner for Best Animated Film at the 2021 ANN awards.
Currently, Paperboat is working on 2 international animation projects- Bhrigu and the Palace of Mirrors based on the book with the same name and Kabuliwala, based on the classic short story by Nobel prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
About Vistas Media Capital:
Vistas Media Capital (VMC) is a Media Content, IP and Technology company, headquartered in Singapore, that operates and invests in ventures across the ecosystem of the global media and entertainment industry. The businesses and venture investments are diversified across Global Content Production and Distribution, Streaming Platforms across video and music, Animation& VFX Studio, Blockchain Technology and NFT (Non-Fungible Token), Gaming, Digital Media Marketing, Events and Award IPs.
VMC owns multiple intellectual properties (IPs) across film festivals and film awards in Asia, such as the Singapore South Asian International Film Festival (Sg.SAIFF) and the Singapore South Asian Film Market (SAFM). It also co-owns the IPs of the prestigious Critics’ Choice Film Awards (CCFA) and Critics’ Choice Short Series Awards (CCSSA), jointly with Group M’s Motion Content Group & Film Critics Guild of India, which is India’s first registered association of film critics.
VMC is one of the first companies from Asia to list a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) IPO on Nasdaq that is taking Anghami – the leading music streaming platform of the MENA region and the first Arab tech company to list on Nasdaq through a reverse merger in Q4 2021. SPACs continue to be VMC’s key focus for strategic growth over time and the group seeks to launch more SPACs on top exchanges across the world.
VMC has a team of media and content specialists, including former banking and investment management professionals in their management team along with media industry veterans across the globe, who are on the advisory board and have successfully run media businesses and ventures across films, series and television worldwide.
For more information on VMC, visit: www.vistasmediacapital.com
About Paperboat Design Studios Pvt. Ltd.:
Soumitra Ranade, Aashish Mall and Mayank Patel came together and founded Paperboat Design Studios in 2011. The idea was to create a unit that delivered top quality projects in design, animation and films. The core competence of Paperboat has always been conceptual thinking along with a learned understanding of different mediums because of which they have been able to achieve this truly unique position of straddling seamlessly across animated feature films, live action feature films, documentaries, animated TV serials, animated audio-visuals, children’s books, nursery rhymes, Apps. and games.
Their animated feature The World of Goopi and Bagha premiered at the TIFF and then went on to be screened at numerous other prestigious international film festivals like Busan, Dubai, MAMI etc. Their live-action, animation/VFX film Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon was screened at Sundance, Curritiba Brazil, OIFFA, IFFSA, Reaktor Film Festival Vienna, and many more. Their Bombay Rose was the opening film at Critics Week at Venice and then went on to be screened at TIFF and many festivals such as Busan, Animation is Film, MAMI, Chicago etc.
Paperboat is currently involved with the pre-production of multiple animated features for a global audience across platforms.
