Following his 10-year long career helming Indian prodco Cosmos-Maya, Anish Mehta is exiting his role as the company’s CEO to pursue a new venture later this year. 

Mehta started at Cosmos-Maya in 2010 as COO before becoming a minority shareholder and taking over as CEO in 2012. That same year, he led the studio’s entry into producing original Indian animated IPs creating the CG-animated comedy series Moto Patlu, which Nickelodeon India ordered and went on to run for more than 1000 episodes.

Since then, Cosmos-Maya has created more than 5,000 hours of kids animation across its more than 20 original shows.

Mehta was instrumental in inking deals with several kidcos including Disney India for broadcasting rights to medical adventure series Dr. Tenali Rama HMKD (104 x 11 minutes) last year and WarnerMedia for greenlighting comedies Titoo and Lambuji Tinguji in 2020, according to a release.

Under Mehta’s leadership, the company has expanded from a 30-member team to more than 1200 employees.

He also led building the company’s YouTube network WowKidz in 2017. Within five years, the channel has reached more than 80 million subscribers and garnered more than 41 billion views worldwide.

Mehta also brought in private equity firms to the Indian animation industry. One of these firms includes NewQuest Capital Partners, which acquired a majority interest in Cosmos-Maya last year from investment platform Emerald Media.