Srini Raghavan wants to build "the next-generation Pixar," and he wants to do it in the Pittsburgh region.

Pack is an awkward, clumsy polar bear in "Artoonic," a 13-episode computer animated series produced by Srini Raghavan. Click photo for larger image.

Pixar, the studio behind "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles," is arguably the most successful film animation company in the world. At the very least, Pixar has done more than any other studio to establish digital animation as a medium for feature films rather than just a tool for special effects.

So when Raghavan, 35, talks about his Coraopolis company, Paprikaas Animation Studios, becoming the next-generation Pixar, he's setting the bar pretty high. Paprikaas, which Raghavan describes as an "animation and digital content company," appears to be off to a good start.

In two years, the firm -- which employs about 130, almost all in India -- has delivered more than 65 hours of animation for clients -- the equivalent of 32 feature films -- including six television series of 13 to 26 episodes each for clients in South Korea, France, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada and a half-hour documentary to be aired on France's Discovery Channel. It also has designed a number of computer games, and by this time next year, anticipates the theatrical release of a full-length 3D feature for an Italian studio.

The man behind this flurry of activity, which has propelled Paprikaas to a finalist in the Pittsburgh Technology Council's Tech 50 Rising Star category, is a soft-spoken engineer who works out of his Coraopolis home and has only recently begun to unleash the artist within.

Raghavan has loved movies and animation for as long as he can remember. As a child growing up in Bangalore, India, he drew constantly, developing his own comic-book character, "Shadowman." But it was when he saw "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," with its combination of live action and animation, that he set his heart on filmmaking. Steven Spielberg, the film's director, "is my idol," he said.

But like many young people with impractical dreams and practical parents, Raghavan deferred his dream to pursue a career, obtaining a degree in engineering from Bangalore University. After a short stint at computer giant Hewlett-Packard in California and a return to India, he came to Pittsburgh in 1996 to work at Mastech, the precursor to Oakdale information technology and services firm iGate.

He advanced to chief information officer and chief technology officer, obtaining an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh along the way. But he never lost his love for films -- a love that he shared with several of his friends back in Bangalore.

"We were always passionate about technology and about films," said Raghavan, adding that in 2002, they all decided to get into computer animation. They formed Paprikaas, setting up a 10,000 square-foot digital animation facility in Bangalore, in which the company began doing "service work" -- that is, providing animation on projects originated and owned by others.

Their largest such project to date led to an unplanned expansion, when they won the contract late last year to animate a full length feature for ASP srl, an Italian studio. "It becomes very easy to deal with production when you have a local setup," and the local work force in Italy "was pretty talented in doing preproduction," Raghavan said. So Paprikaas opened a 3,000 square-foot facility on the outskirts of Milan.

The ASP contract bolstered Raghavan's confidence to complete the leap into entrepreneurship, so in July, he left iGate, and incorporated Paprikaas here, making Coraopolis the headquarters for what had become a global company.

Employees on three continents now engage in the three stages of film production: the Italian studio employs half a dozen in preproduction work; the Indian studio, with 115 employees, does production; and postproduction tasks are handled by firms around the country, mainly in Los Angeles and New York, that are lined up by Raghavan and an assistant.

As busy as Paprikaas has been with animation, content creation plays an equally large role in Raghavan's vision. This year alone, the company has struck a half-dozen co-production agreements with European and Canadian companies to give greater control over content.

For Raghavan, content creation goes beyond movies and television. "Personal technologies are making such an impact on people's lives that there's a need for content everywhere," he said, noting that video games generated $55 billion in sales last year and movies generated $42 billion. The growth of so-called personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones and other portable devices only adds to the demand for content, he said.

Beyond animation and content, Raghavan wants Paprikaas to become a major force in entertainment technology, education and training. To push that endeavor along, he is developing a training course that he expects to use in India first before bringing it here, possibly to Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, where he has served as a guest lecturer. Most students "would like to stay back to work here" rather than leave Pittsburgh for jobs, he said.

Raghavan hopes to grow the company to 350 to 400 employees worldwide within two years, and in a reversal of offshoring -- "Onshoring," he suggests with a chuckle -- to have 10 percent to 15 percent work in the United States.

Entrepreneurs often speak in terms of grand visions, and becoming the next-generation Pixar certainly qualifies. But that does not deter Raghavan from dreaming, and working to pursue that dream.

"I want to create Pittsburgh as an entertainment technology hub," he said. "Pittsburgh is close to my heart."