Pixar

Pixar was originally founded in 1979 as a graphics group-a computer division within Lucas film. It was always the aim for them to allow traditional animators to work with computer graphics. George Lucas then sold with to Steve jobs in 1986 for 10 million dollars at which point the company was renamed Pixar after the original image computer.
 Disney started using this company for his animations. A Pixar employee- John Lassater- created Luxo junior. This was never meant to be for a wide audience but captured the hearts of thousands and is now part of the Pixar branding. It was originally just designed to sell the hardware much like any of the other short animations. After this breakthrough, Pixar were employed to create CGI commercials.
Because of the change that company was making, Steve jobs sold the hardware division in 1990, moving the company to California. At this point, Disney asked them to produce 3 films- toy story 1 (1995), bugs life (1998) and toy story 2 (1999). Pixar thought it was 'unreasonable' that Disney kept all the rights to the stories and sequels. In 2006 Disney bought Pixar. However it maintained its separate name and studio. The first film after this was Ratatouille in 2007. After this, Disney Pixar created a film every year. Pixar continues to be a pioneer of 3D animation.