Badianba Digital raises nearly ¥100M Series A for AI short-drama platform AniShort
What's the deal? Badianba Digital, a Chinese AIGC company, has closed a nearly ¥100M (around US$14M) Series A round for its AI short drama collaboration platform AniShort. Beijing Taizhonghe led the round, with multiple institutional investors and existing shareholders participating. The company says it is the largest single funding round for an AI short drama tool in China in 2026.
AniShort launched globally on March 13, 2026, as a one-stop platform covering the entire short drama production pipeline — from script creation and storyboarding to video generation, editing, and team collaboration. It integrates top AI models including Seedance 2.0, Gemini, and Deepseek.
Why now? China's short drama market surpassed ¥100B in 2025 and is projected to reach ¥500B by 2030, with AI-generated content expected to account for over 90% of output. Badianba Digital, founded in 2014 and known for its digital human generation model XMEN.AI, spotted the opportunity to apply a decade of AIGC expertise to this fast-growing segment.
Since its 13 March 2026 launch, AniShort has hit steep growth numbers: over 10,000 enterprise team users, more than 30,000 projects created, and a 64.8% paid conversion rate among core users. Monthly subscription revenue has approached ¥10M, with 500% month-on-month growth and an 85% repurchase rate.
The platform claims it can produce over 5,000 minutes of short drama content per day — more than 40 complete dramas — while cutting costs by 85% compared to traditional production methods.
What could go wrong? The AI short drama space is crowded, and Badianba Digital's bold efficiency claims remain hard to verify independently. Quality control at industrial scale is a persistent challenge for AI-generated video content. The company also faces regulatory uncertainty as China continues to tighten rules around AI-generated media and digital humans.
Its global expansion plans — partnering with Baoton Technology and Yihuan Network across 150+ countries — will test whether a product built for the Chinese short drama ecosystem can translate to markets with different content preferences and regulatory frameworks.
The signal: This round reflects a broader shift in AI investment from general-purpose foundation models toward vertical, workflow-specific tools that directly generate revenue. AniShort positions itself not as a standalone creative tool but as a full production operating system — what the industry has dubbed "the Feishu of AI short dramas."
Founder and chief executive officer Geng Guangxing framed the ambition plainly: "AI is restructuring the fundamental logic of content production. The short drama industry is entering a golden age of industrialised production, and the AI short drama market is where digital actors will deliver the most value."
The funds will go toward R&D — particularly AI agent development — global market expansion, and building out a creator ecosystem. Badianba Digital aims to lead the AI short drama tools market in both product capability and market share by end of 2026.
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