The Vertical Drama Gamble of a Kyiv Studio
Television wasn’t how Holywater began. Back in 2020 Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov established the studio in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its lineup still looks more like a mobile entertainment laboratory than a streaming platform. My Drama shares the portfolio with My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. The range matters: it points to a company for which video is one of several consumer products, not its entire identity. Ultimately, it placed its bet on the vertical drama, a format that began in China as ai-fruit-love-island.com duanju and is framed 9:16 for an upright phone. The groups behind the category’s biggest names 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 My Drama app appeared in spring 2024, although the precise date hinges on which listing you believe. Google Play shows March 13, 2024, the App Store lists May 9, 2024, and TechCrunch placed the launch in April. The gap between those store dates suggests that Android came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. The genre’s favorite tropes shaped the opening slate. The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss were some of the first titles, and their names reveal most of what you need to know about the mood. The collaborator it would soon be producing them with, not the stories themselves, is what eventually made it stand out.
The Fox Deal, a $22M Round and a Webby
My Drama ceased to be a startup curiosity in October 2025. Fox Entertainment took an equity stake in Holywater, and the agreement came with a pledge to produce more than 200 vertical titles over two years. A $22M funding round led by Horizon Capital came three months later, in January 2026, with Holywater raising the sum. Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside are among the Fox-produced titles on the app. A Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025 is also held by the company, which features it on its App Store listing. Few rivals can boast what these milestones give My Drama, namely a major American studio acting as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama at a Glance
The condensed version of the story is in the table below, for readers who only have a minute. It collects in one place the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a first-time viewer. Prices are the ones displayed in the US App Store as of September 2026. They vary by country, platform and promotion, so use them as a guide rather than a quote. Which legal entity you contract with depends on where you live, a detail that is relevant if you ever need to dispute a charge. On Google Play, where the install figure comes from, the app lists 5M+ downloads.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Owned by | Holywater, founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020 |
| Co-founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Sister apps | My Passion (books), My Muse (AI), FreeBits |
| Contract party, US users | XOLY LIMITED (Delaware) |
| Contract party, other users | Holy Water Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) |
| Launch | Spring 2024 (Google Play on March 13; App Store on May 9) |
| Supported platforms | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro, Android, web |
| Android installs | 5M+ via Google Play |
| Full-access pass | Around $19.99 a week, auto-renewing |
| Coin packages | Around $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium tier | About $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio backer | Fox Entertainment, equity stake since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Investment | $22M in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Recognition | Webby Award, Best Streaming Service, 2025 |
How Watching on My Drama Plays Out
The basic experience mirrors the one the entire category is founded on. Formatted for an upright phone, episodes are vertical, and in this genre they usually last one or two minutes before a cliffhanger pushes you on to the next. A single story can silently swallow an evening in small bites, as series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes. This drama app really distinguishes itself through the range of screens it supports. It is listed for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later and for Vision Pro, beyond iPhone, iPad and Android. For comparison, ReelShort’s App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all, so this big-screen option is less common than you might expect. Granted, a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV, yet the option transforms a solo phone habit into something a couple can enjoy together.
The growing Fox slate runs alongside Holywater’s own early productions in the library. Titles like Billionaire Blackmail and Bound by Obsession make it clear that the Fox releases stay close to the genre’s familiar formula. Scale is where the fair caveat comes in. On Google Play the app shows 5M+ installs, a fraction of the 100M+ that ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list. That gap shows where My Drama stands in 2026, as a well-backed challenger rather than the category leader.
My Drama Pricing in 2026
The main figure is the weekly pass, one of three ways Holywater sells access. About $19.99 a week is what “My Drama: Full Access” costs in the US App Store as of September 2026. ReelShort, ShortMax, DramaWave and GoodShort list their weekly passes at about the same price in the same store, so My Drama sits level with them. Coin packs, which are used to unlock individual episodes, run from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. There is also a separate Premium tier at roughly $4.99 to $9.99, giving lighter viewers less expensive entry points than the full pass. As prices differ by country, platform and promotion, the figure on your own screen may be different. Until you cancel it, the weekly subscription auto-renews, as its rivals’ plans do. Before committing, run the numbers: four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to roughly $80 a month.
The Terms to Understand Before You Pay
The terms of use for My Drama contain fine print worth more attention than most viewers give it. All coin purchases are final, which means no easy refund if a series disappoints after you unlock it. Coins are also forfeited after 12 months of inactivity, which means a balance you ignore for a year can simply disappear. Except where the law requires otherwise, purchases made on the web are described as non-refundable. For viewers in the EU and UK, there is a 14-day right of withdrawal, in line with the consumer rules in those markets. The key point of all: the terms state plainly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. iPhone owners cancel under Settings, then their name, then Subscriptions, while Android users go through the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Holywater does not handle refunds for store purchases; Apple or Google does.
Knowing exactly who sits on the other side of the contract also helps. For US users, the counterparty is XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company; everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. In this case, as with any vertical drama app, a further warning is worth making. Modded APKs, unlimited coins and free coin generators are promised by unofficial sites, and those sites are not a safe way to watch anything. Canceling the pass, not looking for a hack, is the legitimate move if the price feels steep.
Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner
My Drama is not the largest vertical drama app, and on install counts it is not even close. What it offers instead is an unusual combination: 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. For viewers, the practical upside is Apple TV support, which ReelShort, for one, does not list. The downside is the same one that plagues every rival: a weekly pass of around $19.99 that quietly renews in the background. The My Drama app deserves a place on your home screen if you want Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a television. If the largest claimed library is simply what you want, ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious pick. Either way, create a reminder the day you subscribe, and cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button.