Holywater positions itself as the “Netflix” of vertical streaming.
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Holywater, a vertical streaming company founded in Ukraine and backed by Fox Entertainment, is raising a new $22 million funding round to expand what CEO Bogdan Nesvit has publicly described as “the first Netflix on mobile built for short-form episodic vertical video.”
The company operates at the intersection of three rapid changes in media. More and more viewers are watching videos on their mobile phones. Short-form serial storytelling is not new, it is becoming a habit. And generative AI is turning content development into a software-driven process rather than a traditional studio workflow.
Holywater already operates several consumer apps, including My Drama for videos and My Passion for fiction, and reports that video currently accounts for about 70% of its revenue. Nesbitt said the company generates hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from AI-generated video alone, separate from live-action. Across all products, Holywater’s user base is reported to total 85 million people, with overall revenue and subscribers more than doubling year-over-year.
The relationship with Fox, announced in fall 2025, remains central to Holy Water’s strategy. Fox has committed to producing up to 200 vertical series for the platform over two years. Nesbitt said some of these series have already been performed live. Others are still going through Holy Water’s testing and discovery pipeline.
Holywater co-founders, CEO Bogdan Nesvit (seated) and CTO Anatolii Kasianov.
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Holywater doesn’t position itself as a traditional production studio. Nesbitt reiterated that the company sees itself as a platform, focusing on distribution, data, recommendation systems and IP discovery, rather than outright ownership of production.
“We’re building mobile-first video streaming,” Nesbitt said. “This is a great opportunity for major studios and creators looking to move into the vertical to focus on what they do best: creating content. We are focused on technology, retention, endorsement and IP discovery.”
One of Holywater’s most popular streaming episodic micro-dramas.
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This IP discovery system is where Holywater’s use of AI is most evident. The company operates an internal content funnel that moves fluidly between formats. Ideas often start as short stories for My Passion. There, Holywater’s in-house writers develop stories and test them with real audiences. If your story performs well, you can adapt it into an AI-generated video series within days. If the video resonates, Holywater may invest in a live-action production.
This process also works in reverse. Some projects begin as AI-generated video experiments. If they are staged, Holy Water could turn them into books, comics, or eventually a higher-budget live-action series. Nesvit explained that this ecosystem is format agnostic and AI allows for rapid iteration across media types such as fantasy, romance, anime-inspired stories, and comics.
Holywater’s “My Drama” app interface.
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AI-generated videos currently take one to two days per minute to complete using Holywater’s internal tools that integrate proprietary systems with platforms such as LTX Studio. This speed allowed the company to test ideas on a scale not possible with live-action alone.
AI also plays a role in audience testing. Holywater regularly pilots shows on TikTok and YouTube Shorts to gather external signals, run paid user acquisition campaigns to reach specific demographics, and measure the performance of its existing subscriber base. Mr Nesbitt said that while the content underperformed within Holy Water’s own audience, it had shown strong traction on social platforms in some cases, leading the company to greenlight the entire series for new viewers.
Excerpt from Holy Water’s popular soap opera “He’s Not My Husband, He’s My Target.”
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The mix of content remains heavily skewed toward romance, which Nesbitt said accounts for about 75 percent of production and audience demand. Its audience remains overwhelmingly female. At the same time, Holywater is also expanding into fantasy and men’s genres, where AI in particular allows for higher production values without commensurate cost.
Live action remains important. Nesbitt described a premium tier of content where viewers clearly prefer cinematic formats, noting growing interest from traditional studios exploring vertical formats. Holy Water primarily works with non-union crews due to budget and speed constraints, although exceptions are made for high-profile personnel. The average budget for the company’s one-hour vertical series is often less than $250,000.
Much of Holywater’s content targets women, such as “Mafia Beast Won Me In A Battle.” They are expanding their audience with new content in other popular genres such as anime.
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The team behind the platform reflects its hybrid nature. Holywater employs about 200 people, with most of its engineering talent based in Ukraine, and Nesvit said the company continues to look for highly skilled developers at sustainable costs. IP development, production, and partnerships are centered in the United States, with production facilities in Europe as well.
Holy Water expects to release 120 to 200 new series in 2026, which is more than most traditional streamers’ annual original production. Release timing is driven by readiness and seasonality, with the highest performance occurring at the end of the year and beginning of the year, with secondary peaks occurring during the summer when mobile usage increases.
Nesbitt sees Holy Water’s role as a learning engine for vertical storytelling, rather than a closed ecosystem. Studios and creators who publish on the platform receive detailed performance data, and Holywater often positions itself as the exclusive distributor rather than the content owner.
“We’ve built a secure ecosystem where studios and creators can come to us, share data and learn from their audiences,” Nesbitt said. “We are poised to become a distribution engine.”
Rather than significantly increasing headcount or production spending, the new funding will be used to expand Holywater’s platform capabilities, improve its recommendation system, and expand its AI-driven IP discovery. The company’s bet is that vertical streaming is a separate medium rather than a side format, and that AI will determine who can operate at the speed and scale that mobile audiences now expect.
