Haymaker VFX Acquires SWISS, Expanding Its Stockholm Studio and Creative Team

Haymaker VFX’s acquisition of SWISS brings two Swedish visual effects studios under one creative operation, with Stockholm at the center of the change. Announced in Gothenburg on 1 October 2026, the deal adds SWISS’s artists and production experience to Haymaker’s growing Stockholm presence. The SWISS name will stay in place, preserving a studio identity built over more than two decades.

For design and production teams, the arrangement joins complementary strengths: Haymaker’s work across advertising, entertainment and immersive experiences, and SWISS’s long record in visual effects and animation, particularly for high-end advertising. The companies say the shared emphasis is on craft, creative ambition and close collaboration. Their stated aim is to build capacity for more demanding projects while retaining the boutique approach that has shaped Haymaker’s work.

Two studios, distinct creative histories

Founded by Alex Hansson, Haymaker VFX operates in Gothenburg and Los Angeles and is expanding in Stockholm. Its recent work includes Amazon Prime’s Fallout – Season 2 and The Wizard of Oz at Sphere. The studio presents those projects as examples of a practice that moves between screen entertainment, commercial work and immersive settings, where teams may need to adapt visual effects production to different formats and viewing environments.

SWISS was founded in Stockholm in 2002. Its international work has involved directors, agencies, production companies and brands, with a reputation grounded in effects and animation. One prominent example is Volvo Trucks’ The Epic Split, which won two Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. The project gives a concrete marker of the kind of high-profile advertising work associated with SWISS, while the acquisition brings the people behind that work into Haymaker’s Stockholm operation.

Keeping the SWISS brand is a notable part of the transition. A name with more than twenty years of industry recognition can carry the history of the studio’s work into a larger organization, while the combined team gains access to a broader international platform. The companies describe the fit in terms of shared working values, rather than announcing a new visual identity or a change to SWISS’s public name.

Growth and production capacity

Haymaker says it has grown for three consecutive years, with revenue rising by approximately 57% between 2024 and 2025. The studio connects that growth to a larger international client base and expanding project work. The acquisition adds creative depth and production capacity as Haymaker develops its Stockholm presence and pursues work across several markets.

Leslie Sorrentino, President, North America, says clients in that market want partners who can remain responsive while handling larger and more complex scopes. Sorrentino’s description points to a practical production challenge: clients need access to enough people and expertise for demanding work, while maintaining close communication with the teams doing it. Haymaker says adding SWISS strengthens what it can offer without changing how it works with those clients.

Haymaker’s North American operation is based in Los Angeles and led by Sorrentino. The studio describes it as a local base for relationships with agencies, production companies and entertainment clients. Taken together, the Los Angeles and Stockholm presences connect local client contact with a wider pool of creative and production talent. The acquisition expands that pool, though the announcement does not specify changes to staffing structures, project workflows or studio locations.

Tools in service of the work

Alongside its expanded team, Haymaker points to investment in technology and production pipelines, including the use of AI tools where they can improve creative or production workflows. No particular software, versions, pricing or specific AI applications are named. That leaves the claim at the level of production approach: tools are being integrated when the studio sees a practical benefit, rather than positioned as a replacement for the craft and collaboration it identifies as central to the work.

For studios combining teams, a pipeline is more than a set of applications. It shapes how artists hand off work, how supervisors review changes and how production teams coordinate tasks across locations. A larger talent pool can support more ambitious projects, but it also makes clear communication and consistent review practices important. Haymaker has not described the details of its combined pipeline, so the effect of the acquisition on day-to-day workflows remains to be seen.

Hansson, Haymaker’s founder and CEO, says the combined teams give the studio greater creative depth and capacity as it takes on demanding work, while keeping its boutique model. Erik Holmedal of SWISS frames the move as a way for the team to build on its existing heritage within a broader international operation. Neither statement sets out a new service structure or a specific timetable for integration; the clearest commitments are the expanded Stockholm operation and the continuation of the SWISS brand.

The next measure of the deal will be visible in the work: whether the combined team can bring SWISS’s advertising experience together with Haymaker’s projects in entertainment and immersive formats, and how it maintains close collaboration as capacity grows. For creative teams considering a production partner, that combination of established specialist talent, a retained studio identity and an expanding international footprint is the practical change to watch.