Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar

Pixar's headquarters in Emeryville, California
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Computer animation Motion pictures
Predecessors	The New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab (1974–79) The Graphics Group of Lucasfilm Computer Division (1979–86)
Founded	December 9, 1985; 31 years ago (1985-12-09) in Richmond, California, U.S.
Founders	Edwin Catmull Alvy Ray Smith
Headquarters	Emeryville, California, U.S.
Key people	Edwin Catmull (President) John Lasseter (CCO) Jim Morris (President)
Products	Pixar Image Computer Pixar Renderman Marionette
Parent	The Walt Disney Studios (The Walt Disney Company)
Website	www.pixar.com

Pixar (/ˈpɪksɑːr/), rarely also referred to as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California that is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became the majority shareholder. Disney purchased Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction that resulted in Jobs becoming Disney's largest single shareholder at the time. Pixar is best known for CGI-animated feature films created with RenderMan, Pixar's own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface, used to generate high-quality images.

Pixar has produced 17 feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995)—which was the first-ever computer-animated feature film—and its most recent being Finding Dory (2016). All 17 of its films have debuted with CinemaScore ratings of at least an "A−," indicating positive receptions with audiences. The studio has also produced several short films.