Type Private Founder Bruno Nicoletti Founded 1996 | ||
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Key people Alex Mahon, CEOBill Collis, PresidentSimon Robinson, Chief ScientistBruno Nicoletti, Founder Products Visual Effects and 3D Software Profiles | ||
The Foundry Visionmongers (known as Foundry) is a visual effects software development company with headquarters in London, and offices in Manchester, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas and Redwood City, California.
Contents
History
The Foundry was founded in 1996, by Bruno Nicoletti, with Simon Robinson joining soon afterwards. Alex Mahon was named CEO in November 2015. She supersedes Bill Collis, who will remain president and board member.
The Foundry was bought by the owners of Digital Domain, Wyndcrest Holdings, in March 2007, and took over DD's existing NUKE business. Subsequently it was subject to a management buyout with backing from Advent Venture Partners, and then acquired by the Carlyle Group in April 2011.
In September 2012, The Foundry merged with Luxology, a Mountain View-based software house known primarily for modo, a 3D modelling and animation package. Earlier the same month, it ranked at number 70 in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100, with 2011/2012 sales of approximately £15 million, a 49% increase from 2010/2011.
In 2015 reports were that Adobe Systems was preparing to buy them from The Carlyle Group who were the owners at the time.
In February 2017, the company rebranded as Foundry, dropping the "The".
Products
The Foundry had its origins in plug-in development, and its first product was the Tinder (and later Tinderbox) plugins. This business was sold to GenArts in 2010. It continues to sell the Furnace motion-estimation based plugins, which won an Academy Scientific and Technical Award in 2006 Other plugins include Ocula, a set of tools for stereoscopic post-processing; Keylight, a keyer; RollingShutter, which reduces CMOS artefact distortion; CameraTracker; and Kronos.
The Foundry continues the development of Nuke, a node-based compositor. Version 10.0v2 was released in June 2016
MARI, a texture painting application was released in July 2010. This has been originally developed in-house at Weta Digital for use on Avatar. Katana, a tool for look development and lighting, originally from Sony Pictures Imageworks, was released in 2011. HIERO, a brand new shot management, conform and review tool was released in March 2012. The software was designed in-house from the ground up by the Foundry.