HOLYWATER Attracts USD 22M to Scale AI-Powered Mobile Entertainment and Expand Genres

• Ukrainian media tech HOLYWATER secured a USD 22M Series A round, leading vertical video growth
• The team leverages AI, data, and global experience to scale mobile storytelling
• The platform expands microdrama genres, AI-assisted content, and rapid iteration for global audience engagement
• The new funding strengthens HOLYWATER’s IP discovery, AI-native production pipelines, and partnerships

This January, HOLYWATER—the famous Ukrainian ecosystem of content platforms—raised a record-breaking USD 22M Series A round of investment. Horizon Capital became the lead investor of the round, and other participants included Endeavor Catalyst and Wheelhouse. This round followed a recent investment from FOX Entertainment from last October.

HOLYWATER in Recap

HOLYWATER was founded in Ukraine in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, emerging as a pioneer in AI-driven vertical video content for mobile-first platforms. From the outset, the company focused on creating serialized, bite-sized entertainment that caters to modern viewing habits on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Its mission has been to empower creators while building a scalable, technology-enabled content ecosystem.

Mr Nesvit brought experience from Oxford, University College London, the United Nations, and British American Tobacco, along with entrepreneurial lessons from his first startup and operational expertise from Genesis. Mr Kasianov, in his turn, started coding as a schoolboy and honed his skills in the UK before founding HOLYWATER, emphasizing creativity, real-world experience, and innovation. The duo combines technical expertise, global insight, and entrepreneurial vision to reshape storytelling in vertical formats.

HOLYWATER has expanded rapidly, growing its ecosystem to over 85 million users and launching flagship apps like MyDrama — a vertical streaming platform, FreeBits — its companion platform with ad-supported revenue, MyPassion — an e-book platform, and MyMuse — a platform for AI-driven vertical series. A strategic investment from FOX Entertainment in 2025 accelerated production and IP development with a promise of over 200 series for HOLYWATER’s MyDrama app, supercharged by access to FOX’s library of globally recognized IP and world-class talent.

Investor Confidence and Market Validation

Horizon Capital’s senior partner Vasile Tofan shares that his team is thrilled to partner with the HOLYWATER team, impressed by their innovative approach to content production, combined with a disciplined, data-driven model for user acquisition, that has enabled the company to scale rapidly while maintaining strong engagement and retention.

‘In a short period of time, HOLYWATER has built a leading position in the emerging short-form content category, delivering approximately 2x annual revenue growth with a high level of capital efficiency. We look forward to supporting the team as they continue to build a durable, category-defining business,’ Mr Tofan points out.

Expanding Content and Genre Boundaries in the Booming Microdrama Market

‘We’ve continued actively producing stories in collaboration with FOX while simultaneously expanding the vertical drama format itself. That expansion is already visible on the platform — for example, titles like Swapped Bodies with My Secret Crush reflect how we’re pushing genre boundaries within vertical storytelling. We’re releasing new titles every month and working closely with our key premium partners. The pipeline is very much alive, and our focus remains on consistent output, genre exploration, and scaling what works,’ HOLYWATER’s head of studio Sasha Tkachenko updates

This is in line with the trend of the demand for microdramas growing rapidly, with Axios reporting that the format generated about USD 3B in global revenue in 2025 (excluding China)—nearly three times more than the previous year. The US leads at USD 1.3B, with annual revenues projected to reach USD 3.8B by the end of the decade. Consumer behavior is shifting just as quickly: spending on short-drama apps reached USD 700M in the first quarter of 2025 alone, a 4x increase year over year, signaling that mobile-first storytelling is becoming a mainstream entertainment format. At the same time, vertical series are disrupting traditional production models as TheWrap notes that they are typically produced on budgets of USD 150K–⁠300K within as little as 8–⁠10 days, allowing for faster iteration and greater content output.

Data-Driven Story Selection, IP Strategy, and Storytelling

To decide which stories deserve long-term IP investment versus rapid experimentation or discarding, HOLYWATER has several filtering stages in place. First, a story gets assessed on the subject of whether it has ‘meat’ internally. Early on, it has to signal the possibility of layering new loops, twists, and emotional beats onto a premise without it losing momentum. Conversely, if that depth doesn’t emerge quickly, HOLYWATER is comfortable dropping the idea.

From there, the platform leans on data from its ecosystem and beyond: analyzing comparable stories, extracting patterns, and applying best practices. For example, HOLYWATER often adapts books from the My Passion platform when the strong audience engagement with a particular plot becomes apparent.

‘Still, no script guarantees a hit. Production remains inherently unpredictable, and once a story goes live, many variables can shift,’ Ms Tkachenko notes.

She shares that, to adapt narratives across cultures without flattening emotional or cultural specificity, there’s a universal language in storytelling, built around love and conflict. For instance, stories about relationships under pressure tend to work across cultures because the emotional stakes are instantly recognizable. Conversely, where vertical stories often fail is when they become too narrow or overly local — something to avoid. The overarching aim is to keep the emotional core sharp and authentic, while ensuring the story speaks to a broad audience rather than a small niche.

AI-Enhanced Content Pipelines with Carefully Preserved Human Creativity

Where AI-assisted storytelling is involved, a concern arises to prevent from converging toward sameness at scale. Mr Kasianov insists that HOLYWATER uses tech to amplify human creativity and create stories that viewers actually want to watch. On My Muse, the company’s AI-assisted vertical streaming platform, stories begin with human creators, while AI is used to speed up production and experimentation.

‘We operate through distinct content pipelines. For example, we can first create AI pilots based on books from My Passion to quickly test audience response — up to 10x faster and more cost-efficient than live-action production. Scripts are adapted from original works developed or discovered by our in-house writing team, ensuring each story remains authentic. Another instance is when a story shows strong potential, then we move directly to AI-assisted film production on My Muse. Human writers develop the narrative and characters, and AI video creators bring the story to life visually using a range of AI tools. By keeping humans in control of storytelling and using AI as a production engine, we scale content without sacrificing originality or converging toward sameness,’ Mr Kasianov explains.

‘HOLYWATER’s core differentiation lies in our engine: IP discovery, production, and distribution are all optimized for speed and retention. We find stories that already have demand, use tech to iterate and localize faster, and make sure the content is everywhere socially—so we’re not relying on a single launch moment or one platform to win. From a content perspective, My Drama goes beyond standard microdrama niche genres. We’re expanding into young adult romance, sports drama, unscripted formats, action, and more — delivering a feature-film-level experience, designed to live natively on users’ phones,’ Mr Nesvit adds.

Strategic Support and the Deployment of the Investment

Wheelhouse’s CEO Brent Montgomery is convinced that the next generation of entertainment is being built for where and how audiences consume content. It’s apparent for Wheelhouse that HOLYWATER has created a standout vertical storytelling platform with a clear scalable monetization engine.

‘Wheelhouse has been building our internal AI and creative teams to further explore how these tools can unlock new forms of format development and production across our ecosystem of athletes, entertainers, creators and production companies. We see HOLYWATER as a great fit for our strategy,’ Mr Montgomery states.

According to Mr Nesvit, HOLYWATER plans to deploy the newly raised USD 22M with a strong focus on platform leverage rather than brute-force scaling. The investment is about strengthening the systems that allow the company to operate faster, smarter, and at greater scale. This includes::

• Technology and IP discovery: expanding recommendation systems, analytics, and AI-driven IP discovery to shorten the feedback loop between audience demand and content creation;
• AI-native production pipelines: scaling AI-assisted production across vertical video, books, AI-generated series, and new formats like comics and anime, supporting the release of 120–200 series per year without sacrificing quality;
• Market expansion and partnerships: deepen partnerships (with a special focus on the US market) with studios, creators, and premium partners to establish vertical series as a mainstream entertainment format.

HOLYWATER finds itself at the center of the global shift toward vertical microdramas, combining data, AI, and human creativity to redefine how stories are created, tested, and consumed on mobile-first platforms. The record USD 22M Series A round validates both the format’s rapid mainstream adoption and HOLYWATER’s position as the category leader. With strengthened technology, expanded IP pipelines, and deepening partnerships across the US market, the company is poised to shape the next phase of scalable mobile-native entertainment worldwide.