A Kyiv Studio Places Its Bet on the Vertical Drama
Holywater was not born as a TV company. It was in 2020 that Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov founded the company in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its range of products even now reads more like a mobile entertainment https://www.reelshorts.org/ laboratory than a streaming service. Beside My Drama sit My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. This mix is significant, because it points to a company that views video as one of several consumer products rather than its entire identity. The bet it ultimately placed was on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for a phone held upright. For a small Ukrainian company, this was a daring market to enter, because the genre’s largest players were supported by Chinese and Singaporean groups.
The My Drama App Goes Live in Spring 2024
In spring 2024, the My Drama app went live, although the precise date hinges on which source you believe. TechCrunch put the launch in April, Google Play lists March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. The gap between those store dates indicates that Android came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. The genre’s most popular tropes shaped the first slate. Early titles like The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss tell you most of what you need to know about the mood through their names alone. What ultimately made the company stand out was not the stories themselves but the partner it would soon be making them with.
The Fox Deal, a $22M Round and a Webby
The month My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity was October 2025. An equity stake in Holywater was taken by Fox Entertainment, and the deal came with a commitment to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Fox-produced titles on the app include Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. Three months later, in January 2026, Holywater closed $22M in a funding round led by Horizon Capital. The company also has a Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025, a distinction it shows off on its App Store listing. Those milestones, taken together, hand My Drama a rare asset that few rivals can claim: a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama Fact File
The short version of the story sits in the table below, for readers who only have a minute. It collects in one place the details on ownership, legal matters, platforms and pricing that matter most to a new viewer. All prices come from the US App Store as of September 2026. Because they vary by country, platform and promotion, read them as a rough guide rather than a firm quote. Which legal entity you contract with is determined by where you live, a point that is relevant if you ever need to dispute a charge. The install count is taken from Google Play, where the app lists 5M+ downloads.
| Item | Specifics |
|---|---|
| Owner | Holywater (founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020) |
| Founded by | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Related apps | My Passion for books, My Muse for AI, plus FreeBits |
| Contracting entity, US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Contract party, other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Launch | Spring 2024 (Google Play: March 13; App Store: May 9) |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro, Android, web |
| Installs on Android | 5M+ on Google Play |
| Full-access pass | About $19.99 a week, auto-renewing |
| Coin packages | Roughly $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium options | Around $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio backer | Fox Entertainment, equity stake held since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Investment | $22M raised in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Honors | 2025 Webby Award, Best Streaming Service |
What Watching on My Drama Feels Like
The basic experience matches the one the whole category is built on. Episodes are vertical and framed for a phone held upright; in this genre episodes usually run one or two minutes, and then a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next one. Since series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites. What truly sets this drama app apart is the range of screens it supports. It is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro, on top of iPhone, iPad and Android. That big-screen option is rarer than you might expect: by comparison, ReelShort’s App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all. Of course, a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television, yet the option turns a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together.
The growing Fox slate runs beside Holywater’s own early productions in the catalog. Titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make it clear that the Fox releases stick close to the genre’s familiar formula. Scale is where the candid caveat comes in. ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list 100M+ installs on Google Play, whereas the app shows 5M+, a fraction of that. That gap shows where My Drama sits in 2026, as a well-financed challenger rather than the category leader.
Pricing: How Much My Drama Costs in 2026
The main figure is the weekly pass, one of the three ways Holywater sells access. About $19.99 a week is what “My Drama: Full Access” runs in the US App Store as of September 2026. This puts it level with the weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort, all listed at about the same price in the same store. At around $4.99 to $24.99, coin bundles open up individual episodes. The store also lists a separate Premium tier at roughly $4.99 to $9.99, giving lighter viewers lower-cost entry points than the full pass. Country, platform and promotional offers all change prices, so the figure on your own screen may differ. The weekly subscription auto-renews until you cancel it, like its rivals’ plans. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass come to around $80 a month, so do the arithmetic before you commit.
Terms Worth Knowing Before You Pay
My Drama’s terms of use contain fine print that deserves more attention than most viewers pay it. As coin purchases are final, there is no easy refund if a series lets you down after you unlock it. After 12 months of inactivity, coins are also forfeited, so a balance left untouched for a year can simply vanish. Except where the law requires otherwise, web purchases are labeled non-refundable. In the EU and UK, there is a 14-day right of withdrawal, mirroring the consumer rules in those markets. Deleting the app does not cancel your subscription, and the terms state this clearly, and that is the most important point of all. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, while Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Apple or Google, not Holywater, handle refunds for store purchases.
It also helps to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. Everyone outside the US contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus, while US users deal with XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company. One more warning applies here as much as to any vertical drama app. Modded APKs, unlimited coins and free coin generators come from unofficial sites, and those sites are not a safe way to watch anything. When the price seems steep, the proper move is to cancel the pass, not to go hunting for a hack.
The Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood
On install counts, My Drama is not close to being the largest vertical drama app. What it has instead is an unusual mix: a Kyiv founding story, a Fox equity partner committed to more than 200 titles, fresh funding from January 2026 and a Webby on the shelf. The practical benefit for viewers is Apple TV support, a feature ReelShort, for one, does not list. The catch is the same one that dogs every rival, namely a weekly pass of about $19.99 that renews quietly in the background. For Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV, the My Drama app earns a place on your home screen. If you simply want the largest claimed library, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice. In both cases, set a reminder on the day you subscribe and cancel through your store account instead of trusting the delete button.