India’s EloElo Nabs $80M From NBCUniversal To Bet On The Country’s Rising Microdrama Market

India’s microdrama moment has gone global.

EloElo Group, the company behind Story TV and a Lumikai portfolio company, has raised $80M in a Series C co-led by NBCUniversal and Hornbill Capital. The news was covered by TechCrunch, Variety and a number of global and domestic publications.

The round values EloElo at $500M and takes its total funding to $130M. MIT Investment Co. also joined, alongside existing investors including Play Ventures, Kalaari Capital, WaterBridge Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners.

For NBCUniversal, the investment is a bet on how the next generation of audiences will watch. The studio said it sees significant opportunity in mobile-first storytelling, and will bring its global capabilities to EloElo as the company expands beyond India, including into the U.S.

That scale is already visible at home. Story TV has a library of over 5,000 titles across six languages, and users spend an average of 95 minutes a day on the app. Across its apps, EloElo reaches over 40M monthly active users. Founder Saurabh Pandey believes the next billion users will grow up watching entertainment on their phones rather than on television.

Variety’s coverage cites Lumikai’s State of India Interactive Media Report, which projects India’s microdrama market will reach $4.5B by 2030. TechCrunch also links to the report in its coverage of the category’s growth.

The new capital will fund premium original content in Indian languages, international expansion, and Dolphin AI, EloElo’s AI-powered creative suite.

A global studio backing an Indian-built platform to take a new entertainment format to the U.S. signals that India is helping shape how the world watches.

Read on TechCrunch | Variety.

Learn more about Lumikai’s research here.

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