EloElo raises $80 million to develop microdramas in India — TechCrunch
Indian company EloElo has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round from Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal. The company plans to direct a significant portion of the capital toward producing original microdramas and hiring specialists for its artificial intelligence and machine learning research team, TechCrunch reports.
Following the new round, EloElo's total funding has reached $130 million, while the company is valued at $500 million. MIT Investment Co. and existing investors Play Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Waterbridge Ventures, and Griffin Gaming Partners also participated in the round.
Story TV audience
Founded in 2020 by former Flipkart manager Saurabh Pandey, the company develops Story TV, an app featuring short serialized vertical videos. According to analysts, the platform has more than 33 million monthly active users. Its catalog includes more than 5,000 titles in six languages.
Pandey said that Story TV users spend an average of 95 minutes a day in the app, dividing this time among several sessions. EloElo offers monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions for access to content, as well as some free ad-supported content.
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According to Redseer, more than 40 million people have paid to watch microdramas at least once, but only 15–17 million users do so each month. A separate Ormax Media study found that 72% of this content's audience has never paid for it.
Artificial intelligence tools
EloElo also plans to offer Dolphin AI more broadly, a platform initially created as an internal tool to improve video production. According to the company, the service can function as an editor with templates and a set of models for creating images, audio, and video. In the future, EloElo wants to use it for marketing campaigns and advertising.
In addition to Story TV, the company develops Master, an app for learning through vertical videos, and the AI companion app Voxy AI. The combined monthly audience of all EloElo services exceeds 40 million users, with most of them accounted for by Story TV. The company employs 240 people.
