NBCUniversal and Hornbill Capital are leading an $80 million Series C fundraising round for EloElo Group, the Indian microdrama producer behind the Story TV platform.
The financing will support EloElo’s plans to create more vertical dramas for international distribution, including in the United States. It also connects NBCUniversal with a mobile-first entertainment company that says its apps already reach more than 40 million monthly active users.
EloElo Group was founded by former Flipkart executive Saurabh Pandey and launched in Bengaluru, India, in 2020. The company says it has built a slate of more than 5,000 microdramas across six languages, alongside an agentic production engine called Dolphin AI.
“At NBCUniversal, we see significant opportunity in mobile-first storytelling and emerging formats like micro dramas to engage audiences and meet evolving viewing habits,” Deepak Arya, NBCUniversal’s executive vice president of corporate strategy and development, said in a statement.
Arya said EloElo has created a distinctive mobile-first model centered on content and storytelling under Pandey’s leadership. He added that NBCUniversal plans to bring its global capabilities to the partnership as EloElo moves beyond India, including into the U.S.
A Broader Mobile-Content Push
NBCUniversal’s investment comes as its Peacock streaming platform is also moving further into vertical programming. Peacock launched the unscripted vertical series Campus Confidential: Miami as part of a broader effort to use mobile content to connect with new audiences.
Vertical dramas are designed for viewing on mobile devices, with microdrama episodes typically running between 60 and 90 seconds. The stories are structured to keep viewers moving quickly from one installment to the next, using hooks, dramatic spikes and cliffhangers.
The format emerged from China during the pandemic era and has since gained traction in North America and other international markets. EloElo’s planned expansion will now test how its large, multilingual catalog and production model can travel beyond India.
Series C rounds are generally intended to help startups scale their operations. For EloElo, the company says this latest capital will be directed toward expanding content across languages, increasing its emphasis on premium original programming and investing further in Dolphin AI.
“This Series C deepens our content across languages, with a sharper focus on premium originals, doubles down on Dolphin AI, and takes what we have built to more audiences and more markets,” Pandey, EloElo Group’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.
ShowBiz Take
The significance of the deal goes beyond the size of the fundraising round. NBCUniversal is pairing its financial support with a stated belief that mobile-first storytelling and microdramas can respond to changing viewing behavior. Its involvement also follows Peacock’s own launch of a vertical series, making the EloElo partnership part of an existing content strategy rather than an isolated investment.
EloElo brings several elements to that strategy: a claimed audience of more than 40 million monthly active users across its apps, over 5,000 microdramas, programming in six languages and an AI production engine that the company intends to develop further. NBCUniversal, meanwhile, says it will contribute global capabilities as EloElo pursues expansion outside India.
The U.S. market is explicitly included in those plans, giving the financing a clear international objective. The round is designed not only to increase EloElo’s output, but also to support premium originals and adapt its vertical-drama operation for additional audiences and markets.
What Happens Next?
EloElo will use the Series C funding to produce new vertical dramas for export, deepen its multilingual content offering and continue work on Dolphin AI. Its expansion will include the U.S., although no specific titles, production timetable or release dates for the forthcoming international dramas have been announced.