EloElo Raises $80 Million With NBCUniversal and Hornbill Backing

EloElo Group, the Bengaluru-based company that operates Indian microdrama service Story TV, has secured $80 million in Series C financing. NBCUniversal and India-focused investment firm Hornbill Capital jointly led the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $130 million.

MIT Investment Co. also participated, along with returning investors Play Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Waterbridge Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners, among others. Avendus Capital was the transaction’s sole financial adviser. EloElo was established in 2020 by Saurabh Pandey, a former Flipkart executive who serves as its chief executive.

The company intends to use the proceeds for original shows in local languages, an international rollout of its microdramas and additional development of Dolphin AI, alongside other projects. Deepak Arya, NBCUniversal’s executive vice president of corporate strategy and development, said the partnership would bring the company’s global capabilities to EloElo as it expands outside India, including into the United States.

Arya said NBCUniversal sees opportunities in storytelling designed for mobile devices and in emerging formats such as microdramas as audiences’ viewing habits change. He pointed to EloElo’s emphasis on content and storytelling under Pandey’s leadership as a basis for its long-term prospects. Pandey described a phone-first audience seeking video entertainment in its own languages, with episodes that fit into daily routines.

Story TV offers more than 5,000 microdramas across six languages, releasing another title every three hours. Average daily use stands at 95 minutes per user. Across EloElo’s apps, monthly active users exceed 40 million and cumulative installs have surpassed 300 million. The company said its revenue had multiplied over the past year.

EloElo’s other products include Master, a micro learning app, and Voxy AI, an AI companion agent. Its agentic AI creative suite, Dolphin AI, was introduced recently at the FICCI Frames conference. Pandey said Story TV provides insight into Indian viewing preferences, while Dolphin AI supports the economics of producing that content, helping the group scale with solid unit economics.

Hornbill Capital founder and managing partner Manoj Thakur said EloElo pairs creative strengths with technology that enables content production to scale. Thakur established the investment firm in 2014. Its previous investments include PhysicsWallah, KreditBee, Dhan and Nazara Technologies.

The financing comes as research firms forecast growth for microdramas. Omdia projects worldwide revenue of $14 billion by the end of 2026. Redseer estimates that 40 million people in India purchased microdrama content at least once during fiscal 2026, while Lumikai forecasts that the Indian market will reach $4.5 billion by 2030.