Animated Company
Animated Company is a London animation studio making animation for brands, studios and its own original series. It also builds Fossa Tether, an After Effects plugin that lets animators direct AI video generation with keyframes on the timeline, so the artist stays in control of every shot.
Posted: 05 November 2026
Animated Company is an independent animation studio based in London, founded by Douglas McGinness. The studio produces animation for brands and production companies and is developing its own original adult animated series. Alongside the studio, Animated Company builds Fossa Tether, a plugin for After Effects that lets animators direct AI video generation the way they already work. They set keyframes and nulls on the timeline and the generated video follows them, so every shot is shaped by the animator from the first frame. The studio and the tool are built together. Every feature in Fossa Tether gets tested on real production work first, and the studio’s own projects run through the same pipeline. The aim is to bring down the cost and time it takes to make animation while keeping the animator’s hand at the centre of it. Animated Company is part of the CoSTAR Emerge-AI programme, run by the CoSTAR National Lab. Find out more at animatedcompany.com.
Douglas McGinness
Douglas McGinness is the founder of Animated Company and the creator of Fossa Tether. He comes from motion design, where he worked on campaigns for brands including Apple, Nike, Google, Amazon and Epic Games, and moved into AI animation as the tools started to change how shots get made. He builds the pipeline himself, from the plugin code to the animation, and spoke at the AI Summit London in June 2026.
