Marc du Pontavice and his wife Alix founded it in 1999 as a replacement for the animation division of Gaumont Multimédia, which was itself an offshoot of the company's television division Gaumont Télévision, a company he co-founded in 1990.

The origin of Xilam is closely linked to Gaumont's television production activity, launched in the early 1990s.

[2] From 1994 to 1998, certain cartoons such as Space Goofs and Oggy and the Cockroaches met with international success, and it was only in 1999 that the Xilam company bought current productions from Gaumont, including Oggy, and also partnered with German trader Igel Media for the assets of Gaumont Multimedia.

[4] Xilam's programs including Shuriken School,[5] Space Goofs,[6] and Oggy and the Cockroaches[7] were internationally successful.

[14] A new studio was opened in Angoulême in order to repatriate production to France in addition to that of Villeurbanne.