Micro dramas are booming — and one startup is betting AI can help make them more interactive.
StoReel is a Beijing-based startup that distributes AI-made micro dramas in its mobile app. It’s also a platform that lets creators make series using AI characters and voices. StoReel makes most of its revenue in the US, but is present in a handful of markets.
The company shared exclusively with Business Insider that it had raised $34 million in funding — $9 million in seed capital led by Play Ventures, and $25 million in user acquisition financing from PVX Partners. In user acquisition financing, investors do not receive equity in the company. They earn a return through a share of the revenue produced by a defined set of new users.
Other investors in the new round include T-Accelerate Capital, Tirta Ventures, and The Venture Reality Fund.
They join a growing number of investors in the micro drama space, generally, including Fox Entertainment.
StoReel says AI is well-suited to micro dramas
Micro dramas, the short-episode series meant for watching on your phone, have taken off in popularity. High customer acquisition costs and repetitive, trope-filled storylines have raised questions about their staying power, however.
StoReel’s pitch is that it can produce series cheaply with AI while focusing on LGBTQ+, sci-fi, and fantasy stories that are less common on the leading micro drama apps. StoReel also has features that let audiences interact with the characters.
StoReel says it can make an hourlong series for $20,000 to $40,000 each — a fraction of the cost of micro dramas that use human actors, which run around $150,000 to $200,000. StoReel is investing in productions, with funds going toward creative development, AI tools, and computing. Over time, the company hopes creators will produce dramas independently using its tools.
“Micro dramas are very compatible with AI, because they’re highly iterative, and they’re very fast, and there’s high volume,” said Angela Yu, StoReel’s co-CEO. “This is really a big shift because we’re no longer trying to scale content linearly, like the traditional studio model.”
StoReel invites creators — often recent film school grads — to develop series. They’re paid on a minimum guarantee or a roughly 50% revenue share of subscription fees. Like most micro drama apps, StoReel makes money by charging viewers fees after several episodes — in its case, $29.99 a week and $239.99 a year for unlimited viewing. It plans to get deeper into advertising down the road.
When StoReel originates or fully funds the content, it often owns the IP. Over time, StoReel sees creators owning their IP, with the company providing distribution and monetization and getting platform exclusivity for a defined period.
StoReel says it’s solving the content-cost problem
Phylicia Koh, general partner at Play Ventures, said StoReel’s AI lets creators experiment with new genres without as much risk.
“People tend to complain about how it’s always the same tropes,” Koh said of micro dramas. “Those are the things that the micro drama companies know get attention.”
Koh said StoReel’s model “reduces the cost of failure.”
StoReel isn’t the first in the space to use AI. For example, Fox-backed Holywater last year launched My Muse, an AI generator of series and audiobooks.
Yu said when StoReel made its first AI show a year ago, it was an “utter failure.”
“At the very beginning, we were still a little bit nervous, hoping that it can perform at the same level as live action,” she said. “Now we’ve proven that as long as the genres and the story are unique, it doesn’t matter if it’s AI or if it’s humans.”
StoReel will also cancel a show early if it doesn’t perform well.
StoReel has posted 59 series on the platform. One of its biggest hits is “Brothers By Chance, Lovers By Choice,” about a couple who later become stepbrothers when their parents marry.
Yu is bullish on StoReel’s interactivity because of the user behavior she observed at a Chinese AI companionship app where she previously worked.
“We really saw very high retention, because fans have an emotional need to chat with, kind of their fantasy,” she said. “When people watch short dramas, it’s also a type of escape.”
See the investor deck that StoReel used to raise its funding:
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