Hyderabad-based OTT platform Chai Bisket has raised $5 million in a seed funding round. InfoEdge Ventures and General Catalyst led the round.
The money will be used to launch Chai Shots, a mobile-only platform that focuses on short regional dramas.
Many well-known angel investors also took part in the funding round. These include actor Rana Daggubati, Swiggy co-founders Sri Harsha Majety and Nandan Reddy, redBus founder Phanindra Sama, Darwinbox co-founder Rohit Chennamaneni, PhysicsWallah co-founders Alakh Pandey and Prateek, the Rapido co-founders (Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli & Rishikesh SR), and Virgio founder Amar Nagaram.
Chai Shots offers short fiction videos, each just two minutes long. It is designed for Gen Z and people in smaller cities, with high-quality, emotional stories in regional languages.
The app is made for personal viewing on mobile phones and will first launch in Telugu. Later, it will expand to Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada.
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The Chai Shots platform is being led by Sharath Chandra, Anurag Reddy, and Krishna Mohan Varma, who have joined as co-founders to lead the tech side of the platform.
Chai Shots plans to release over 100 original shows in its first six months. Unlike apps with user-made short videos, this platform combines content and technology to focus on short, fictional stories.
Last month, another similar startup called Flick TV raised $2.3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Stellaris Venture Partners, with support from Gemba Capital and Titan Capital.
Chai Shots will also face competition from other short video platforms like Kuku FM’s Kuku TV, ShareChat’s QuickTV, Reel Saga, and Reelies.
We believe content is culture — and culture is what people scroll, skip, and binge every day,” said Reddy. “We’ve spent ten years building a storytelling engine rooted in emotional truth and regional identity.”
Daggubati, one of the investors in the company, said, “The future of stories is fast, local, and emotional. Chai Shots gets that. I’m excited to be part of the new short culture revolution.”
“We’re extremely bullish on micro dramas as a format, especially in regional markets like Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada, where there’s both strong demand and high willingness to pay for original content,” said Kitty Agarwal, partner at Info Edge Ventures.
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