Vurt wants you to look at vertical videos as a genre of their own

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Vurt is betting that the next big thing in vertical entertainment is living on wide-screen TVs.

Vurt is betting that the next big thing in vertical entertainment is living on wide-screen TVs.

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From Disney Plus to HBO Max, almost every major established streaming service is experimenting with ways to get into vertical content. It’s clear that these companies see video-focused social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram as existential threats. In this arms race for viewers’ attention, it has often felt like everyone is trying to find new ways to exist on people’s phones. But a new startup thinks that the next step in vertical series’ evolution is going to take place on our wide-screen televisions.

Unlike most vertical microdrama / series streaming platforms on the market that have focused on mobile viewing experiences, Vurt has been making a pivot into smart TVs. The company recently launched dedicated apps for Apple TV and Android TV that give users access to 3,500 episodes across more than 100 different shows. Since launching in March, Vurt’s userbase has grown from 10,000 to 675,000 users.

Vurt primarily features the kind of soapy, melodramatic microdramas that have made rival services like DramaBox and ReelShort popular. But whereas those platforms have become inundated with AI-generated slop, the vast majority of Vurt’s series are produced with human casts and crews. And because Vurt monetizes its content through ad partnerships, viewers can watch all of it for free instead of dealing with convoluted microtransactions.

When I spoke with Vurt cofounder / angel investor Hilmon Sorey this week, he told me that the company’s big push into dedicated TV apps was driven by direct feedback from users. People wanted a way to beam verticals they were already watching via their phones onto bigger screens, but Vurt’s development team thought that they could take things a step further.

“At first, we first developed the ability for folks to cast to smart TVs,” Sorey said. “But we decided that wasn’t the best experience because we could leverage all of the technology in those large-screen devices to bring features like HD / 4K video, and the ability to do really high-quality audio.”