A Kyiv Studio Bets on the Vertical Drama
Holywater didn’t begin life as a TV outfit. Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov set up the business in 2020 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its product lineup still reads more like a mobile entertainment lab than a streaming platform. Next to My Drama are My Passion for books, My Muse for AI and FreeBits. That breadth matters: it shows a business for https://fastdrama.net/series/goodbye-my-brothers/ which video is one of several consumer products, not its whole identity. The gamble 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 vertically. The groups behind the category’s biggest names were Chinese and Singaporean, making this a bold market for a small Ukrainian firm to enter.
Spring 2024 and the Debut of the My Drama App
In spring 2024, the My Drama app went live, though the exact date depends on which source you believe. TechCrunch dated the launch in April, Google Play gives March 13, 2024, and the App Store gives May 9, 2024. Judging by the gap between those store dates, Android likely came first and the iPhone version arrived about two months later. At launch, the slate leaned hard on the genre’s favorite tropes. The first titles included The Shy Beauty and the Billionaire Beast and Love Captive to a Mafia Boss, names that reveal most of what you need to know about the mood. What ultimately made the company stand out was not the stories themselves but the partner it would soon be making them with.
A Fox Deal, a $22M Round and a Webby
October 2025 was the month My Drama stopped being a startup curiosity. Fox Entertainment acquired an equity stake in Holywater, in a deal that included a pledge to make more than 200 vertical titles over two years. Among the Fox-produced titles on the service are Billionaire Blackmail, Bound by Obsession and My Heart’s Offside. Three months later, in January 2026, Holywater secured $22M in a round led by Horizon Capital. In its App Store listing, the company displays another credential: a Webby Award for Best Streaming Service from 2025. Those milestones, taken together, give My Drama a rare advantage that few rivals can claim: a major American studio serving as both shareholder and producer.
My Drama at a Glance
The table below gives the condensed version of the story if you only have a minute. It collects the ownership, legal, platform and pricing details that matter most to a new viewer. As of September 2026, the prices are those listed in the US App Store. They vary by country, platform and promotion, so use them as a guide rather than a quote. Which legal entity you deal with depends on where you live, a detail that becomes relevant if you ever need to challenge a charge. The install figure refers to Google Play, where the app displays 5M+ downloads.
| Topic | Specifics |
|---|---|
| Parent company | Holywater (founded in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2020) |
| Founders | Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov |
| Companion 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 date | Spring 2024 (Google Play on March 13; App Store on May 9) |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV (tvOS 18+), Vision Pro and web |
| Android downloads | Google Play: 5M+ |
| Full access pass | About $19.99 a week, auto-renewing |
| Coin bundles | Roughly $4.99 to $24.99 |
| Premium tier | Roughly $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Studio backer | Fox Entertainment, equity stake held since October 2025, 200+ titles over two years |
| Funding | $22M raised in January 2026, led by Horizon Capital |
| Recognition | 2025 Webby Award, Best Streaming Service |
What It Feels Like to Watch My Drama
The basic experience mirrors the one the whole category is founded on. Episodes are vertical, sized for a phone held upright, and in this genre they typically run a minute or two before a cliffhanger pushes you toward the next one. A single story can quietly swallow an evening in short bites, since series often run anywhere from 20 to 100 episodes. Where this drama app really sets itself apart is the range of screens it supports. Apart from iPhone, iPad and Android, the app is listed for Vision Pro and for Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later. This big-screen option is rarer than you might think: by comparison, ReelShort’s App Store listing shows no Apple TV version at all. The option converts a solo phone habit into something a couple can watch together, even though a 9:16 frame will never fill a widescreen TV.
The growing Fox slate runs beside 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. The honest caveat here is scale. ReelShort, DramaBox and ShortMax each list 100M+ installs on Google Play, while My Drama lists 5M+, a small fraction of that. That gap tells you where My Drama sits in 2026: a well-funded challenger rather than the category leader.
My Drama Pricing in 2026
Holywater sells access three ways, and the main figure is the weekly pass. In the US App Store as of September 2026, “My Drama: Full Access” is priced at around $19.99 per week. 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. Coin bundles, used to unlock individual episodes, run from roughly $4.99 to $24.99. The store also lists a separate Premium tier at about $4.99 to $9.99, which gives lighter viewers cheaper entry points than the full pass. The weekly subscription renews automatically until you cancel it, like its rivals’ plans. Prices change by country, platform and promotion, so the figure on your own device may be different. Four renewals of a $19.99 weekly pass add up to roughly $80 a month, so do the arithmetic before you commit.
Terms Worth Knowing Before You Pay
The fine print in My Drama’s terms of use merits more attention than most viewers give it. Coin purchases are final, so there is 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. In line with the consumer rules in those markets, viewers in the EU and UK get a 14-day right of withdrawal. Whatever you buy on the web is described as non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. The most important point is this: the terms say clearly that deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. On an iPhone you cancel under Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions, while Android users use the Subscriptions menu in Google Play. Apple or Google, not Holywater, deal with refunds for store purchases.
Knowing exactly who sits on the other side of the contract also helps. XOLY LIMITED, a Delaware company, covers US users, whereas everyone else contracts with Holy Water Limited in Nicosia, Cyprus. As with any vertical drama app, another warning applies here. Sites offering modded APKs, unlimited coins or free coin generators are unofficial and are not a safe way to watch anything. When the price feels too high, the right step is cancelling the pass; do not go hunting for a hack.
Verdict: A Challenger With Hollywood in Its Corner
My Drama is not the biggest vertical drama app, and going by install counts it is not close. What it offers instead is an uncommon 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. For viewers, the practical upside is Apple TV support, which ReelShort, for one, does not list. Like every rival, the downside is a weekly pass of roughly $19.99 that renews quietly in the background. ShortMax, with its 50,000+ dramas, is the more obvious pick if you simply want the largest claimed library. If you are after Fox-produced romance and the option to watch on a TV, the My Drama app deserves a place on your home screen. Either way, cancel through your store account rather than trusting the delete button, and set a reminder the day you subscribe.



