How a Kyiv Studio Bet on the Vertical Drama

TV wasn’t where Holywater got its start. The studio was set up in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 by Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov, and its product lineup to this day reads more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming service. My Passion covers books, My Muse handles AI, and FreeBits completes the set alongside My Drama. It matters that the portfolio is this broad, since it shows a business that treats video as one consumer product www.vertical-drama.net/series/found-a-homeless-genius-to-save-my-company among several instead of its entire identity. Eventually, Holywater wagered on the vertical drama, a style that started in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for a phone held vertically. The groups behind the category’s largest players were Chinese and Singaporean, making this a bold market for a small Ukrainian company to enter.

Spring 2024 and the Launch of the My Drama App

The precise date of the My Drama app hinges on which source you believe, but it went live in spring 2024. The launch date varies by source: TechCrunch put it in April, Google Play shows March 13, 2024, and the App Store lists May 9, 2024. Those store dates indicate that Android was first, with the iPhone version landing about two months later. The launch slate relied heavily on the genre’s best-loved tropes. Initial titles such as The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss reveal most of what you need to know about the tone just by their names. It was not the stories themselves that ultimately made the studio stand out, but the collaborator it would soon be producing them with.

Fox, $22M in Funding and a Webby Award

In October 2025, My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity. An equity stake in Holywater was taken by Fox Entertainment, and the agreement came with a pledge to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Fox-produced titles on the service include Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. Horizon Capital led a $22M funding round in Holywater three months later, in January 2026. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 is also held by the company, which displays it on its App Store listing. Few rivals can claim what those milestones hand My Drama, namely a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.

My Drama Fact File

If you only have a spare minute, the table below gives you the condensed version of the story. It collects in one place the details on ownership, legal matters, platforms and pricing that matter most to newcomers. As of September 2026, the prices match those listed in the US App Store. Read them as a guide rather than a quote, since they differ by country, platform and promotion. The install count refers to Google Play, where the app displays 5M+ downloads. The legal entity you sign up with depends on where you live, which becomes relevant if you ever need to dispute a charge.

How Watching on My Drama Plays Out

The core experience mirrors the one the whole category is founded on. In this genre, episodes typically run a minute or two before a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next one, and they are vertical, sized for a phone held upright. As series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can silently swallow an evening in bite-sized pieces. The drama app truly distinguishes itself through the range of screens it supports. Besides iPhone, iPad and Android, listings show it for Vision Pro and for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later. That big-screen option is rarer than you might think, since ReelShort’s App Store listing, for comparison, shows no Apple TV version at all. A 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen television, but the option converts a solo phone habit into something a couple can enjoy together.

On the content side, the library blends Holywater’s own early productions with the growing Fox slate. As titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make plain, the Fox releases stick close to the genre’s well-worn formula. Scale is where the fair caveat comes in. On Google Play the app displays 5M+ installs, a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list. That gap tells you where My Drama stands in 2026: a well-financed challenger rather than the category leader.

Pricing: What My Drama Costs in 2026

Holywater sells access three ways, and the key figure is the weekly pass. As of September 2026, the US App Store lists “My Drama: Full Access” at roughly $19.99 a week. That places it on par with the weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort, which are listed at about the same price in the same store. To unlock individual episodes, there are coin packs priced from around $4.99 to $24.99. The store also lists a separate Premium tier at around $4.99 to $9.99, which gives lighter viewers less expensive entry points than the full pass. Like its rivals’ plans, the weekly subscription renews automatically until you cancel it. The figure on your own screen may be different, because prices vary by country, platform and promotion. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass come to roughly $80 a month, so run the numbers before you commit.

Before You Pay: Terms Worth Knowing

The terms of use for My Drama contain fine print worth more attention than most viewers give it. Since coin purchases are final, there is no easy refund if a series lets you down after you unlock it. A balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear, as coins are forfeited after 12 months of inactivity. A 14-day right of withdrawal covers viewers in the EU and UK, reflecting the consumer rules in those markets. Purchases made on the web are listed as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Most importantly, the terms make it clear that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, while Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Refunds for store purchases are dealt with by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.

It is also wise to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. US users contract with XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company, while everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. Here, as with any vertical drama app, one more warning is worth making. A site promising modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators is unofficial, and it is not a safe way to watch anything. When the price feels steep, the legitimate move is to cancel the pass, not to look for a hack.

The Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood

On install counts, My Drama is not even close to being the largest vertical drama app. 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 add up to the uncommon combination it offers instead. The practical upside for viewers is Apple TV support, a feature ReelShort, for one, does not list. A weekly pass of around $19.99 that renews quietly in the background is the catch, the same one that plagues every rival. If the largest claimed library is simply what you want, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious choice. Viewers who want Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV will find that the My Drama app earns a place on their home screen. Whichever you pick, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and set a reminder the day you subscribe.