It’s a giant day for generative AI funding.
On the heels of Inflection AI touchdown a $1.3 billion funding, Runway, a startup constructing generative AI instruments for multimedia content material creators, at the moment introduced a $141 million extension to its Sequence C spherical from Google, Nvidia and Salesforce, amongst others.
Constructing on the Sequence C the corporate introduced in December, Runway says that the brand new capital will probably be used to scale its in-house analysis efforts and broaden Runway’s headcount.
“We’re targeted on how we will proceed pushing the boundaries of creativity,” Runway CEO Cris Valenzuela instructed TechCrunch by way of e mail. “The extra funding permits us to double down on this, innovating on new instruments for artists and creators.”
Runway was based in 2018 by Valenzuela, Alejandro Matamala and Anastasis Germanidis. Valenzuela met Matamala and Germanidis whereas in artwork faculty at NYU, the place the trio got here to appreciate that they shared a curiosity in AI’s inventive potential. From there, Valenzuela, Matamala and Germanidis began constructing a collection of AI-powered instruments geared towards moviemakers, cinematographers and photographers.
Runway’s focus has steadily shifted through the years to generative AI, significantly on the video aspect. Its present flagship product is Gen-2, an AI mannequin that generates movies from textual content prompts or an present picture.
A video created by Runway’s Gen-2 mannequin. Picture Credit: Runway
We examined Gen-2 and located it to be spectacular — if considerably wanting. However to Runway’s credit score, Gen-2 — the follow-up to Runway’s Gen-1 mannequin launched in February — is likely one of the first commercially out there text-to-video fashions.
Runway has ambitions past constructing a toolset, to be clear. The startup lately based Runway Studios, an leisure division that serves as a manufacturing companion for enterprise shoppers. It additionally launched the AI Movie Competition, an occasion Runway claims is likely one of the first devoted to showcasing movies produced in complete or partially by AI.
Valenzuela says that Runway’s buyer base now spans Fortune 500 and World 2000 corporations, together with New Steadiness and “tens of millions” of particular person creators.
The rising enterprise shopper base isn’t shocking, contemplating the huge hype round all types of generative AI. In a recent FreshBooks survey, 25% of companies mentioned that they’re testing generative AI instruments, whereas round 33% plan to attempt generative AI for work throughout the subsequent 12 months.
“Content material creation at the moment could be very costly and time consuming,” he added. “We need to assist carry these value and time components as near zero as doable, particularly as corporations’ content material wants are solely growing . . . [Our goal is to] reimagine content material creation and [build] a brand new sort of inventive suite, the generative suite.”
The Sequence C extension — which values Runway at $1.5 billion, a supply acquainted with the matter tells TechCrunch — brings the corporate’s complete raised to $237 million. It makes Runway one of many better-funded generative AI startups on the market, in league with Cohere, Character.ai ($150 million) and Stability AI (~$100 million).