Bengaluru based EloElo Group has raised $80 million in a Series C round led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal. The round takes the company’s total funding to $130 million and values it at a reported $500 million.
The company runs Story TV, a microdrama platform built for short serialized episodes watched on phones. It says the new capital will fund original shows, international expansion and further work on its AI production suite.
The round
MIT Investment Co. joined the round alongside existing investors Play Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Waterbridge Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners. Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser on the deal.
The Series C is far larger than the company’s previous round, a $13.5 million Series B raised in April 2025. EloElo was founded in 2020 by Saurabh Pandey, a former Flipkart executive, and is based in Bengaluru.
What the money will fund
EloElo plans to invest in premium original content across Indian languages, with a sharper focus on shows made for Story TV. It also plans to launch Story TV in international markets, including the United States.
Saurabh Pandey said phone first viewing is now the default for a huge new audience. “A billion people now reach for the phone before any other screen, and the entertainment built for them will be video first, in their own language, in episodes that fit their day,” he said.
Dolphin AI and the wider app portfolio
A central part of the plan is Dolphin AI, the company’s agentic AI creative suite. It started as an internal tool to speed up video creation and is now being opened up more widely to help make images, audio and video for shows, campaigns and ads.
Story TV now carries more than 5,000 titles across six languages, with a new drama launched every three hours. The company says users spend an average of 95 minutes a day on the platform across several sessions.
Beyond Story TV, EloElo runs Master, a short form learning app, and Voxy AI, an interactive AI companion. Across its apps, the group reports more than 40 million monthly active users, with most of them on Story TV.
Why microdrama is drawing big backers
Microdramas are short serialized stories made for vertical phone screens, and the format has grown fast in India, China and the United States. Analysts cited by the company expect the global industry to generate $14 billion by the end of 2026.
EloElo has 240 people and plans to grow its AI and machine learning research team with part of the new funding. The rest of the capital will go largely into producing more original titles to keep viewers returning daily.
