BRAHMA AI
An AI-native operating system for enterprise audiovisual content — UK-incorporated, operating under the DNEG / Prime Focus group
BRAHMA AI Limited (Company No. 15639516) was incorporated as a UK private limited company on 12 April 2024, with its registered office at 160 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QA. In our assessment, the entity reads less like a conventional founder-led startup and more like a purpose-built vehicle through which DNEG — the visual-effects and animation major controlled by Prime Focus Limited — carved out its media-workflow software assets into a standalone enterprise AI platform. That structural origin is a material starting point for evaluating governance and independence.
Holds an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge. Spent his early career as a corporate attorney and partner at White & Case and Baker McKenzie, advising on multibillion-dollar cross-border transactions — a legal and capital-markets background rather than a product or research one. He later founded investment vehicles Novator Capital and Nama Capital, backing technology, media and fintech companies. He currently sits on the board of Better Home & Finance Holding (Nasdaq-listed, formerly Better.com), advising on AI strategy. Per available reporting, his formal directorship at BRAHMA AI Limited on the UK companies register (Companies House) was not entered until 10 October 2025 — roughly eighteen months after the company’s stated April 2024 formation and the narrative that positions him as founding CEO from inception (see the Data Gap Notice in Section 03).
A Belgian (Flemish) technologist who, prior to joining BRAHMA AI, spent close to two decades in post-production pipeline engineering and creative supervision roles at Industrial Light & Magic, MPC and Metaphysic. His credits include Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Guardians of the Galaxy, World War Z, the ABBA Voyage live concert experience, and the neural-performance work on the film Here (digital de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright) — a project that went on to win a 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award. He is a recurring speaker at NVIDIA GTC, SIGGRAPH and FMX and is a well-known figure in high-end visual-effects circles.
- Per Companies House persons-with-significant-control (PSC) records, an individual PSC (born April 1976, Indian nationality) held 75%+ of shares and voting rights at incorporation in April 2024; that individual PSC status was terminated on 20 December 2024 and replaced by a corporate PSC. Public filings do not name this individual, and while we infer this most plausibly corresponds to DNEG/Prime Focus founder Namit Malhotra, we have not confirmed this and flag it as unverified. The rationale and timing of the shift from individual to corporate control is not addressed in company disclosures.
- At least one company-data aggregator (Endole) lists a “Founder” appointed in April 2024 as American, age 52 — inconsistent with Prabhu Narasimhan, whom Companies House separately lists as Indian, age 46. Whether these records refer to the same individual is unclear from public sources; board-level biographical details should be treated as unverified pending cross-confirmation.
BRAHMA AI positions itself as an “AI-native operating system” for enterprise audiovisual content, targeting four global verticals: media & entertainment, sports, healthcare, and advertising. We view the company not as a foundation-model developer in the conventional sense, but as an “assembled” platform business that has layered an AI product interface on top of pre-existing media-production and enterprise-software assets.
(M&E · Sports · Healthcare · Ads)
(Core / Studio)
(Warner Bros · NBA · Mayo Clinic)
(Emmy · NAB Product of Year)
The BRAHMA AI platform is built around two core products.
An enterprise content-intelligence and management layer built on Prime Focus Technologies’ CLEAR media-workflow and CLEAR AI software, handling large-scale content search, tagging, localization and workflow automation.
An AI-generation layer inheriting Metaphysic’s neural-performance technology, encompassing digital humans (ATMAN), multilingual voice localization (VAANI) and immersive media experiences. Studio won the 2026 NAB Show Product of the Year in the Intelligent Technology category.
Beyond its initial media & entertainment footprint, the same technology stack is being extended horizontally into sports (NBA), healthcare (Mayo Clinic — digital twins for physicians), and advertising (a strategic relationship with Hakuhodo).
Asset-consolidation history: In July 2024, the DNEG group acquired Prime Focus Technologies, including its CLEAR software suite. A newly formed BRAHMA AI Limited subsidiary subsequently acquired Metaphysic Inc. via merger in February 2025 (Metaphysic advised by Simpson Thacher); that transaction valued the combined Brahma-Metaphysic business at approximately $1.43 billion. Per company disclosure, integration of the technology stacks and teams was completed as of November 2025.
Partnerships and customer base: Named anchor clients include Warner Bros, the NBA and Mayo Clinic. Strategic distribution and technology relationships include Google (a multi-year strategic partnership combining Google Cloud infrastructure with BRAHMA AI’s interactive digital-human technology), Hakuhodo (a major Japanese advertising agency), and DNEG (both parent and distribution partner). CEO Narasimhan has publicly signaled plans to launch interactive digital humans, pursue a model-agnostic architecture, and expand the company’s Bay Area (Silicon Valley) presence.
BRAHMA AI’s capital history has been shaped less by a conventional sequence of venture rounds and more by intra-group asset transfers and M&A orchestrated by its parent (Prime Focus/DNEG), with an external institutional round arriving only in September 2026. The most significant event to date is the $150 million preferred-share financing announced on 23 September 2026, led by India-based private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management, which formalized a $2 billion post-money valuation.
The DNEG group (under Prime Focus Limited) incorporated BRAHMA AI Limited in the UK as the vehicle for its enterprise AI platform. An individual PSC held 75%+ of shares at formation; control transferred to a corporate PSC in December of the same year.
DNEG acquired Prime Focus Technologies, owner of the CLEAR and CLEAR AI media-workflow software that would later form the technical foundation of BRAHMA AI Core.
A BRAHMA AI subsidiary acquired Metaphysic Inc. via merger (Metaphysic advised by Simpson Thacher), adding neural-network-driven synthetic-media capability. The transaction valued the combined Brahma-Metaphysic business at approximately $1.43 billion — a reference valuation roughly 19 months ahead of the September 2026 round’s $2 billion mark.
Prabhu Narasimhan and Paras Dattatraya Mantri, among others, were formally entered as directors on the Companies House register in October 2025. The company reported completion of technology and team integration across DNEG, Metaphysic and Prime Focus Technologies the following month.
Deal structure: BRAHMA AI raised $150 million through the issuance of preferred shares, of which India-based private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management contributed $100 million. The company separately reported an additional $100 million of investor demand and said it is evaluating whether to upsize the round. Cantor Fitzgerald acted as sole placement agent.
Ownership structure: Prime Focus, through subsidiary DNEG, retains the largest economic ownership stake in BRAHMA AI — approximately 66% post-dilution. BRAHMA AI continues to operate as a separately governed entity with its own board and management.
Parent commentary: Prime Focus founder and CEO Namit Malhotra characterized DNEG (visual effects and animation) and BRAHMA AI (enterprise AI) as the group’s “two growth engines.” Separately, Malhotra referenced himself, United Al Saqer Group and Thor Bjorgolfsson as longstanding backers of BRAHMA AI, though the announcement does not confirm whether any of them participated in this specific round.
• Total raised: $150,000,000 (preferred-share issuance)
• Confirmed lead contribution: $100,000,000 (Multiples Alternate Asset Management)
• Post-money valuation: $2,000,000,000
• Additional demand pending: $100,000,000 (potential upsize, unconfirmed)
• Placement agent: Cantor Fitzgerald (sole)
• Existing majority owner: Prime Focus Limited (via subsidiary DNEG, ~66% post-dilution)
- Remaining round contribution unnamed: The official announcement specifies only Multiples’ $100 million contribution to the $150 million total; the source of the remaining approximately $50 million is not identified in the release or in subsequent press coverage we reviewed (per Runtimewire’s review of the announcement).
- No revenue disclosure: The $2 billion post-money valuation was announced without accompanying revenue or ARR figures, and we are unable to independently verify the implied multiple at this time.
- Namesake collision risk: Startup databases (e.g., CBInsights) also track an unrelated company called “Brahma” (brahmafi.com, a DeFi/crypto platform that raised approximately $6.7 million across 2022–2023). This entity is unaffiliated with BRAHMA AI Limited (the subject of this report), and we flag the risk of conflation in automated data aggregation.
- Headquarters framing: The press release dateline cites “Los Angeles, London, Mumbai” jointly, whereas legal incorporation is a single UK entity registered in London. The “UK company” framing reflects the entity’s place of incorporation; actual operations are distributed across the US, UK and India.
In our assessment, BRAHMA AI’s competitive positioning stems not from proprietary foundation-model research but from combining already-proven, Hollywood-grade production technology and enterprise software infrastructure under a single AI layer — reinforced by parent-company financial backing. Relative to pure-play foundation-model startups, this gives the company a differentiated moat, though it also carries the governance complexity typical of a corporate carve-out.
The company’s digital-human and neural-performance technology has been validated in actual Hollywood productions (Here, Star Wars, ABBA Voyage, among others), not merely in demos, and won both the 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy and NAB Show Product of the Year in the same year. This is a form of industry credibility that many newer generative-AI entrants lack and is not easily replicated in the short term.
Through Prime Focus Technologies’ CLEAR workflow software, the company holds enterprise-grade infrastructure for managing large-scale content operations, not merely a generative AI tool. The combination of Metaphysic’s generative capability (Studio) with the CLEAR-based management layer (Core) enables cross-sell potential that single-point-solution competitors typically lack.
Using media & entertainment as its initial beachhead, the company is extending the same architecture horizontally into sports (NBA), healthcare (Mayo Clinic — digital twins for physicians) and advertising (Hakuhodo). That said, the actual revenue contribution of the healthcare and advertising verticals is not disclosed in public materials, so at this stage we treat this expansion as potential rather than demonstrated.
With Prime Focus/DNEG retaining roughly 66% economic ownership post-dilution, the company benefits from parent-level financial backing while also securing independent institutional capital and governance validation from Multiples. This offers greater downside stability than a purely VC-funded startup, though it may also mean external minority shareholders carry comparatively limited governance influence.
Leadership composition: The pairing of Narasimhan (legal and capital-markets background) and Plaete (two decades of VFX and production engineering) gives the company both deal-structuring capability and technical depth. That said, the gap between the founding narrative and the formal Companies House record, along with the inherent governance complexity of a corporate carve-out structure, remain additional due-diligence items relative to a conventionally independent founder-led startup.