The studio that turned Indonesian stories into an intellectual-property business - and made the biggest film in the country's history.
Visinema is not a traditional film company. It is an integrated entertainment and intellectual-property business that treats a movie less as a single event and more as the first door into a franchise.
In March 2025, an animated film about a lonely boy named Don opened in Indonesian cinemas. Jumbo had been in production for five years and had passed through the hands of more than 400 local artists and animators. By June, it had sold roughly 10.07 million tickets and grossed over Rp402 billion (about US$24.7 million) - making it the highest-grossing Indonesian film ever released and Southeast Asia's top-grossing animated feature.
The company behind it, Visinema, had spent seventeen years getting there. Founded in Jakarta in 2008 by director Angga Dwimas Sasongko and producer Anggia Kharisma, it began the way many studios do: commercials, music videos, and a first feature (Hari Untuk Amanda, 2010) that earned a Citra Award nomination but not a fortune.
What changed was the model. Rather than betting the company on opening weekends, Visinema built an IP-first business - one where box office is deliberately capped at roughly 40% of income and the rest comes from streaming, licensing, series, merchandise and physical experiences. That structure is what let a risky, five-year original animation get made at all.
Today Visinema is around 150 people, backed by venture capital, and holds a library of Indonesian IP - Keluarga Cemara, Filosofi Kopi, the animated series Nussa, the children's series Domikado - that it extends across cinema, television and OTT platforms. Its stated ambition is blunt: make Indonesia's creative industry as globally influential as Korea's or Hollywood's.
Jumbo is real proof that when you invest in craft, invest in quality, invest in empathy, the audience will respond.
— Angga Dwimas Sasongko, Founder & CEOVisinema develops, produces and distributes stories - then keeps working them long after the credits roll.
Feature films, animated features, short films and streaming series, plus the intellectual property underneath them - so a single story can become a franchise.
Millions of Indonesian and regional cinemagoers; streamers like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Viu and GoPlay licensing content; brands; and families consuming IP like Nussa.
Single-release box office is volatile. Visinema's IP model smooths that risk into recurring revenue, funding bolder original work that would never survive a box-office-only budget.
A young, 270-million-person market wanted narratives rooted in Indonesian culture and values. Visinema bet the company on that audience while others chased imported formats.
Visinema deliberately limits how much of its income comes from the box office. The point is not to make less money at the cinema - it is to depend on it less.
The feature-film arm behind theatrical releases including Keluarga Cemara, Filosofi Kopi, Cahaya dari Timur and Stealing Raden Saleh.
The animation and IP unit that produced Jumbo and holds properties like Nussa and Domikado, led by former Disney Indonesia head Herry Salim.
Merchandise, brand tie-ins and physical spaces that extend film IP off the screen - most famously the Filosofi Kopi coffee shops.
Original series and content produced for OTT platforms including Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Viu, GoPlay and YouTube.
A platform and programs giving emerging Indonesian writers, directors and animators the chance to produce and distribute work.
Plenty of studios make Indonesian films. Visinema's difference is that it treats each one as a durable asset and refuses the usual trade-off between art and commerce.
Where many production houses operate project-to-project, Visinema builds franchises. Filosofi Kopi became sequels and real cafes; Keluarga Cemara moved from film to family brand; Nussa was acquired and developed as a long-term IP. Ownership is the strategy - the company would rather hold a story for a decade than sell it for a single payday.
Its expertise sits across a rare stack for the region: award-winning live-action filmmaking (a Citra Award for Best Picture with Cahaya dari Timur in 2014, and nominations across its catalogue), full animation and VFX production proven at feature scale by Jumbo, and the commercial machinery of licensing and distribution.
The leadership choices tell the story. To scale IP, Visinema recruited a former Disney Indonesia country manager and an ex-GoPay CEO - resumes that belong to a consumer-products and platform business as much as a film one. That is deliberate: the company is building something closer to an IP house than a studio.
Its competitors span local players like MD Pictures, Falcon Pictures and Rapi Films, and regional animation houses such as Malaysia's Les' Copaque and Animonsta. Visinema's wager is that patient, empathetic, locally-rooted craft - not chasing trends - is what travels.
We have to be able to live without binaries. There is no art versus commerce.
— Angga Dwimas SasongkoVisinema was one of the earliest Indonesian entertainment companies to raise institutional venture capital.
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead / Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | part of ~$5.25M cumulative | pre-2020 | GDP Venture, Ancora Capital |
| Series A | $3.25M (Rp45.5B) | Feb 2020 | Intudo Ventures (lead), GDP Venture, Ancora Capital |
The 2020 round was earmarked to expand animation capacity, deepen talent acquisition and support regional expansion - the groundwork that Jumbo would later build on.
Angga Dwimas Sasongko and Anggia Kharisma start Visinema, producing commercials and music videos.
Hari Untuk Amanda releases and earns a Citra Award Best Picture nomination.
Cahaya dari Timur: Beta Maluku wins the Citra Award and marks the move into theatrical production.
The film spawns sequels and real coffee shops - an early experiment in extending IP off-screen.
Intudo Ventures leads a round with GDP Venture and Ancora Capital to expand animation and IP.
Former Disney Indonesia head Herry Salim joins as Group President & CEO of Visinema Studios.
The animated feature becomes Indonesia's highest-grossing film ever and Southeast Asia's top animation.