iWorld
Reelsaga raises $2.1 million to script India’s leap into the global microdrama wave
MUMBAI: Microdrama startup Reelsaga has raised $2.1 million in a seed funding round led by Picus Capital, marking India’s formal foray into the booming global trend of short-form serial storytelling. The round drew backing from ITI Growth Opportunities Fund, 8i Ventures, Nazara Technologies, Waveform Ventures, Bharat Founders Fund, and angel investors.
Reelsaga’s app, now live, delivers vertically shot, mobile-first fictional episodes in 50 to 100-part arcs—a genre popularised in China where short dramas now outperform traditional box office returns. With hyper-local storytelling and AI-driven personalisation, Reelsaga plans to scale across India, southeast Asia, and the middle east—markets projected to cross $10 billion in digital entertainment revenue by 2025.
“Vertical short dramas are a cultural revolution. Drama doesn’t need 40 minutes to move you”, said Reelsaga co-founder & CEO Shubh Bansal. “We’re using data science to deliver hyper-personalised stories at speed”.
Founded by ex-Truebil trio Bansal, Shanu Vivek, and Ritesh Pandey, the startup taps deep roots in consumer tech, creative media, and digital platforms. All three co-founders previously scaled and exited the used car marketplace Truebil, which was acquired by Spinny.
“We’re excited to back Reelsaga as they pioneer a new genre of storytelling”, said Picus Capital SVP Abhijay Thacker. “The team’s creative ambition and market clarity is rare. We see them leading the microdrama revolution in India”.
Microdramas have already gone mainstream in China, with over 5,000 series produced annually. Reelsaga aims to localise this model, offering narrative depth in bite-sized bursts tailored for India’s mobile-native gen z audience.
ITI Growth managing partner Mohit Gulati added, “They’re building for where the market is going—story-rich, culturally rooted, and mobile-first. The format is fresh and the team knows how to execute”.
With the fresh capital, Reelsaga plans to ramp up content production, refine its recommendation engine, and expand its creator network.
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
