Generative AI Startup Runway Raises $141M
Synthetic media software startup Runway has raised a $141 million extension to its Series C funding round from December. The announcement confirms earlier reports about the text-to-video and video-to-video generative AI developer from when it signed a deal with Google Cloud.
Runway Cash
“We’re rebuilding the creative stack from the ground up and developing impactful research that will be a major force of change across industries,” Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said. “The next phase of storytelling will be highly democratized, and our ultimate goal is to create a more equitable, diverse and creative world through our products and research outputs. We are thrilled to have continued support from investors, partners, and customers who believe in this vision.”
Runway was one of the early contributors to the open-source AI image generator Stable Diffusion and has expanded into entertainment since its 2018 founding, including providing technology used for visual effects in the film, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Runway has widened its focus in the last year and upgraded its tech with the new Gen-2 model a could couple of months ago. The company has hosted AI Film Festivals and even founded Runway Studios to make its own movies.
The new funding will go toward supporting those ambitions. Runway has raised a total raised of $237 million and has a reported valuation of $1.5 billion. The list of investors for the new round is notable for including some of the major investors in other big funding rounds this week. Synthetic media for business startup Typeface raised $100 million in a Salesforce Ventures-led round, while Nvidia was one of the leaders of large language model startup Inflection AI’s $1.3 billion round.
“Generative AI is transforming the content creation industry, breathing new life into stories and ideas that were not imaginable,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. “The Runway team is doing amazing work with Nvidia accelerated computing in the cloud to push the boundaries of creativity and storytelling for millions of artists globally.”
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Google Invests in Generative AI Startup Runway and Signs Major Cloud Computing Deal
