Runway, a leader in generative AI, has raised $141m in its latest round of (Series C) funding. The company specialises in building AI-powered creator tools for creators. It cited backing from “Google, NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, and existing investors, among others.”
The company is now valued at $1.5 billion. They said it will “leverage this financing to scale research efforts, expand its world-class team and bring state-of-the-art multi-modal AI systems to market, while building ground-breaking product experiences.”
“We’re rebuilding the creative stack from the ground up and developing impactful research that will be a major force of change across industries,” said Runway CEO and co-founder, Cristóbal Valenzuela (pictured). “The next phase of storytelling will be highly democratised, 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.”
Since the company’s last funding announcement in December, Runway has been supercharging its efforts. It has “supercharged its efforts to make content creation accessible to everyone with its innovative AI-powered creator tools. The company made huge waves in the world of AI by releasing Gen-1. It’s a major step forward in generated content. This allows users to generate video from an input video and either image or text prompts. Also Gen-2, the first publicly available text-to-video model. Runway also hosted the first-ever AI Film Festivals, created Runway Studios. They also launched a mobile app, further expanding access to AI tools for users.”
Runway’s tech has implications for all creative industries. However, it is widely expected to have a major impact on the digital first creator economy. “Generative AI is transforming the content creation industry, breathing new life into stories and ideas that were not imaginable,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of 2023’s hot technology company NVIDIA. “The Runway team is doing amazing work… pushing the boundaries of creativity and storytelling for millions of artists globally.”
