This guide covers the top 10 animation studios in India: when they started, what they make, how their pipelines work, and what they have actually released. Every studio here was checked against its own website rather than lifted from another list.
What is an animation studio?#
An animation studio is a production company that creates animated content, from series and films to commercials, explainer videos and game cinematics, and carries each one from first sketch to final delivery.
The work splits into three stages:
- Pre-production. Script, character design, storyboard, animatic, style frames. Everything that settles what the show looks like before a single frame is animated.
- Production. Layout, modelling and rigging for 3D, animation, backgrounds, lighting. The bulk of the hours sit here.
- Post-production. Compositing, editing, sound, colour, final render and delivery in whatever format the platform requires.
A full-service or pre-to-post animation studio runs all three in-house. Many studios handle only one slice, such as a rigging house or a compositing vendor, and plug into someone else's pipeline.
The other distinction is 2D versus 3D animation. 2D animation works in flat space, drawn or built in software like Toon Boom Harmony, and still dominates TV series and web content. 3D animation builds characters and environments as digital models, rigs them like puppets and renders them out. Most serious Indian animation studios now run both.
Top 10 animation studios in India#
1. Green Gold Animation#
Studio history. Green Gold Animation Pvt. Ltd. states on its own site that it has been operating since 2004, and has grown from a single studio into a group spanning broadcast, streaming and consumer products. It is widely reported as Hyderabad-based, founded by Rajiv Chilaka.
Creative vision. Original, inclusive children's entertainment rooted in Indian storytelling, with characters designed to connect across generations rather than a single viewing season.
Animation process. Full IP development from concept through delivery, in both 2D and 3D, extending past production into broadcast, licensing and merchandising verticals.
Latest releases. The catalogue includes Chhota Bheem, Mighty Raju, Super Bheem, Arjun Prince of Bali, Chorr Police, Luv Kushh and Krishna The Great. Mighty Little Bheem carried the franchise onto Netflix for a global audience.
2. Cosmos-Maya#
Studio history. A Mumbai-based animation studio and one of the most established names in Indian kids' television, with a catalogue the company puts at 24 shows and 58 movies.
Creative vision. Character-led kids' content built for Indian broadcast and digital platforms, with an emphasis on IPs that run for multiple seasons rather than one-off commissions.
Animation process. Series production at broadcast scale, structured around the delivery requirements of individual networks, which is why the same studio can run parallel slates for competing channels.
Latest releases. Long-running series across Sony YAY!, Disney Star and Viacom18's kids networks.
3. Toonz Media Group#
Studio history. Founded in 1999 in an 18,000 sq ft facility at Technopark, Trivandrum. Today the group runs 11 global offices and 10 group companies, including Telegael in Ireland and IMIRA in Spain, with a team of 1,000 and above.
Creative vision. "Entertain the world", through kids and family content produced, distributed and exploited across broadcast, digital, gaming, licensing and AR/VR.
Animation process. Roughly 10,000 minutes of 2D and 3D animation a year, plus live action and stop motion, with distribution across six continents. Toonz Animation Academy, founded in 2002, trains talent directly into the pipeline.
Latest releases. A global distribution deal for the CG series MechWest, the feature Tulipop: Magical Seasons launched at Cannes, and The Taste of Water, an animated feature documentary.
4. Xentrix Studios#
Studio history. An India-based animation studio that describes itself as the fastest growing in Australasia, built primarily on international series production.
Creative vision. "Where artistry meets innovation", which in practice means high-end execution for other people's properties, delivered to network specification.
Animation process. High-end CGI animation, traditional 2D animation and gaming projects, structured around long-running international series work.
Latest releases. Monster High, Transformers Cyberverse, Big Nate, Shimmer and Shine, Still Water, Looney Tunes Animayhem, Beware the Batman, Superbook and Peggy & Molly.
5. Monal Digital#
Studio history. Monal Digital LLP is a full-service pre-to-post production animation studio based in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, incorporated on 18 March 2020 and founded by Ajay Singh Bisht. It is the youngest studio on this list, and the one with the most unusual shape.
Creative vision. Kids and family animation built for platform-native distribution, so content is designed for where audiences actually watch and produced continuously rather than in one-off commission cycles.
Animation process. A full 2D and 3D pipeline in-house, covering pre-production, production, distribution and growth. What separates Monal from most animation studios in India is that it also operates the channels its content lands on. Monal manages 93 channels with a combined 83M+ subscribers, so production and distribution sit inside one company.
Latest releases. ZappyToons, the flagship property, has 31M+ subscribers and 19B+ views. Wands and Wings is distributed on Amazon Prime and Tata Play. Groovy the Martian has 3.1M+ subscribers, alongside Wands and Wings Junior, ZappyZoo, GiggleBellies and Monal Kids Hindi. The full catalogue is on the work page, with studio background on the about page.
6. Digitoonz#
Studio history. A 2D and 3D animation production studio with a global footprint spanning the USA, UK, Australia, Japan and India, and a workforce the company puts at 500+ creative minds.
Creative vision. A "one-stop workshop", meaning a single partner accountable for the whole pipeline rather than a specialist vendor booked stage by stage.
Animation process. Covers all three areas of production, from concept design through compositing and editing, across 2D animation, 3D animation, CGI production and interactive entertainment.
Latest releases. Series and CGI production for international clients, plus a slate of studio-owned IP.
7. Vaibhav Studios#
Studio history. A director-led Indian animation studio, small by headcount and built entirely on original creative voice.
Creative vision. Design-forward, largely wordless comedy that travels across language markets without dubbing.
Animation process. Boutique 2D production where timing, design and direction carry the show, rather than volume throughput.
Latest releases. Lamput, the globally acclaimed series created by the studio and broadcast internationally.
8. Ssoftoons#
Studio history. Founded in 2001 in a small room in Howrah by Sourav Mondal and Hansa Dangaich Mondal, at a time when nearly all animated content in India was dubbed or imported.
Creative vision. Original Indian stories rooted in local culture, made in regional languages. Content that connects, rather than content that translates.
Animation process. Two decades of regional-language series production, with an in-house institute training the artists the studio hires.
Latest releases. Gopal Bhar, Lullu, Batul the Great, Nonte Fonte and Thakumar Jhuli, among a long-running catalogue.
9. DNEG#
Studio history. A global studio with over 25 years of industry experience, structured across DNEG VFX, DNEG Animation, DNEG IXP, DNEG ART and DNEG Technology. A substantial share of its production capacity operates out of Indian facilities.
Creative vision. Partnering with filmmakers on visual effects, animation and creative technologies for film, TV and immersive content.
Animation process. Feature-scale CGI animation and VFX, at the budget and schedule level of theatrical production rather than episodic series.
Latest releases. Ongoing feature animation through DNEG Animation, alongside its VFX slate.
10. Reliance Animation#
Studio history. One of the larger established animation studios in India, with a long record in television series production and a training network operating across the country.
Creative vision. The studio describes itself as reviving the culture of storytelling by characterising animation in a world of fantasy, and positions itself as one of the leading and fastest growing animation studios in India.
Animation process. 3D CGI series and film production, with a catalogue built around Indian mythological and cultural properties.
Latest releases. Not detailed on the studio's current homepage.
Choosing the right animation partner#
If you are commissioning animation rather than reading about it, four questions narrow the shortlist fast.
What kind of animation studio do you need? Volume studios and authorship studios are not interchangeable. Xentrix and Vaibhav Studios are both excellent, and almost never right for the same brief.
Does the pipeline break anywhere? If pre-production, production and post-production sit in different companies, every handoff is a place the schedule can lose a week. Full pre-to-post animation studios remove that risk, and Monal's services page is a reasonable model of what to ask any candidate to show you.
Can they show consistency, not just a showreel? Ask for two widely separated episodes of a delivered series. Reels are cut precisely to hide the drift that appears around episode thirty.
Who owns the IP? Original development, work-for-hire and co-production carry completely different rights structures. Settle it before the style frames, not after.
The future of animation in India#
The centre of gravity has moved. For most of the last twenty years, animation studios in India grew on broadcast commissions and international service work. The growth now comes from streaming and channel-native production, where the audience is global from day one and the commissioner may be a platform rather than a network.
That favours studios that can do more than produce. Toonz built distribution. Green Gold built licensing. Monal Digital built an owned-channel network. Animation companies in India that only execute someone else's brief are the ones most exposed to whatever comes next.
FAQ#
Which are the top 10 animation studios in India?#
Green Gold Animation, Cosmos-Maya, Toonz Media Group, Xentrix Studios, Monal Digital, Digitoonz, Vaibhav Studios, Ssoftoons, DNEG and Reliance Animation.
What is an animation studio?#
A production company that makes animated content from concept to final delivery, covering pre-production, production and post-production. A full-service or pre-to-post animation studio handles all three in-house.
Which city has the most animation studios in India?#
Mumbai and Hyderabad have the largest concentrations, with Bengaluru, Chennai, Trivandrum and Kolkata all supporting significant studios. Smaller cities including Haldwani now host animation studios producing at national and international scale.
Do Indian animation studios do 3D animation as well as 2D?#
Yes. Toonz, Digitoonz and Monal Digital all run 2D and 3D pipelines, and Xentrix and DNEG work at CGI feature standard. The idea that India is a 2D-only animation market is well out of date.
Which Indian animation studio has the biggest audience?#
It depends how you count. Green Gold's Chhota Bheem is the most recognised character franchise. On owned digital reach, Monal Digital manages 93 channels with 83M+ combined subscribers, including ZappyToons at 31M+ subscribers and 19B+ views.
How do I choose an animation studio in India?#
Match the studio type to the work, whether that is volume, authorship or full pipeline, then check delivery consistency across a real series, confirm the pipeline has no external handoffs, and settle IP ownership before production starts.
Conclusion#
India is no longer a place animation gets sent to. It is a place animation gets made.
The top 10 animation studios in India covered here span the full range of what that means: original IP houses like Green Gold and Ssoftoons building characters that outlive their first season, international service studios like Xentrix and DNEG delivering to network and feature standard, boutique creative studios like Vaibhav Studios earning international recognition on design voice alone, and full-pipeline animation studios like Toonz, Digitoonz and Monal Digital that produce and distribute their own catalogues in 2D and 3D.
So the next time a series lands on Netflix or a channel racks up its billionth view, there is a fair chance an Indian animation studio built it.
If you are planning an animation project and want a studio that covers pre-production through distribution across 2D and 3D, get in touch with Monal Digital.