How a Kyiv Studio Gambled on the Vertical Drama
Television wasn’t how Holywater started out. Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov established the studio in 2020 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its portfolio even now reads more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming platform. My Drama is listed next to My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. It is telling that the portfolio is this broad, since it shows a business that treats video as one of several consumer products instead of its whole identity. The gamble it eventually placed was on the vertical drama, a format that originated in China as duanju and is framed 9:16 for a phone held vertically. The groups behind the category’s biggest names were Chinese and Singaporean, making this reelshort movies a daring market for a small Ukrainian firm to enter.
Spring 2024: The My Drama App Hits the Stores
Spring 2024 brought the debut of the My Drama app, though the exact date depends on which source you believe. Per TechCrunch, the launch came in April, while Google Play shows March 13, 2024, and the App Store shows May 9, 2024. Going by the difference between those store dates, Android probably came first and the iPhone version followed about two months later. The genre’s most popular tropes dominated the opening slate. Early titles included The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss, names that show most of what you need to know about the style. It was not the stories themselves that ultimately made the studio stand out, but the partner it would soon be producing them with.
Fox, $22M in Funding and a Webby Award
October 2025 was the month 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 make more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Included in the Fox-produced titles on the platform are Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. A $22M round led by Horizon Capital came three months later, in January 2026, with Holywater raising the sum. The company additionally has a 2025 Webby Award for Best Streaming Service, a credential it features on its App Store listing. Combined, these milestones hand My Drama something few rivals can boast: a major American studio serving as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama Fact File
The table below gives the quick version of the story for when you only have a minute. It pulls together the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that count most to a new viewer. The prices are those shown in the US App Store as of September 2026. Treat them as a guide rather than a quote, because they vary by country, platform and promotion. The app shows 5M+ downloads on Google Play, which is what the install figure refers to. If you ever need to challenge a charge, it helps to know that the legal entity you contract with depends on where you live.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Holywater, founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 |
| Founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Companion apps | My Passion (books), My Muse (AI), FreeBits |
| Contracting entity, US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Legal entity for other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Launch date | Spring 2024 (Google Play: March 13; App Store: May 9) |
| Supported platforms | iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro and web |
| Android installs | Google Play: 5M+ |
| Full access pass | Around $19.99 per week, with automatic renewal |
| Coin packs | Around $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium options | About $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio partner | Fox Entertainment, equity stake since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Funding | $22M in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Awards | Webby Award, Best Streaming Service, 2025 |
What Watching on My Drama Feels Like
The whole category is built on this same basic experience, and My Drama follows it. In this genre, episodes typically last a minute or two before a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next one, and they are vertical, sized for a phone held upright. With series often running anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes, a single story can quietly eat up an evening in short bites. Where this drama app truly sets itself apart is the range of screens it supports. Besides iPhone, iPad and Android, it is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro. This big-screen option is rarer than you might think: 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 TV, yet the option converts a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together.
The growing Fox slate sits alongside Holywater’s own early productions in the library. As titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make plain, the Fox releases stay close to the genre’s familiar formula. Scale is where the candid caveat comes in. The app lists 5M+ installs on Google Play, a small fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each show. That gap shows where My Drama stands in 2026: a well-backed challenger rather than the category leader.
What My Drama Costs in 2026: Plans and Prices
Holywater sells access in three ways, and the main figure is the weekly pass. “My Drama: Full Access” runs roughly $19.99 per week in the US App Store as of September 2026. The weekly passes from ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort are listed at about the same price in the same store, which puts My Drama on par with them. To unlock individual episodes, there are coin bundles running from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. With a separate Premium tier listed at around $4.99 to $9.99, lighter viewers get lower-cost entry points than the full pass. Until you cancel it, the weekly subscription auto-renews, as its rivals’ plans do. The figure on your own screen may differ, as prices change by country, platform and promotion. Before you commit, do the arithmetic: four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to around $80 a month.
Before You Pay: Terms Worth Knowing
My Drama’s terms of use carry fine print that deserves more attention than most viewers pay it. Coin purchases are final, so there is no easy refund if a series lets you down after you unlock it. Coins are also forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, which means a balance you ignore for a year can simply vanish. Reflecting the consumer rules in those markets, viewers in the EU and UK receive a 14-day right of withdrawal. Purchases on the web are listed as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Most important of all, the terms make it clear that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. On an iPhone you cancel under Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions, while Android users go through the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. When you buy through a store, refunds are handled by Apple or Google, not by Holywater.
It also helps to know exactly who sits on the other side of the contract. For US users, the counterparty is XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company; everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. 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 such sites are not a safe way to watch anything. Canceling the pass, not looking for a hack, is the proper move if the price seems too high.
The Verdict: A Challenger Backed by Hollywood
My Drama is not the biggest vertical drama app, and going by install counts it is not close. Rather, it offers an unlikely combination: a Kyiv founding story, a Fox equity partner signed up for more than 200 titles, fresh funding from January 2026 and a Webby on the shelf. ReelShort, for one, does not list Apple TV support, which makes it the practical advantage for My Drama viewers. The catch is the same one that dogs every rival: a weekly pass of about $19.99 that renews quietly in the background. Anyone who wants Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV should know that the My Drama app deserves a place on their home screen. When the largest claimed library is all you want, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious pick. Whichever you pick, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and create a reminder the day you subscribe.