AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation, eyes more capable world models

AI video procreation startup Runway has raised a $315 cardinal Series E round, astir doubling its valuation to $5.3 billion, a root acquainted with the substance told TechCrunch. 

The caller funds volition let Runway to “pre-train the adjacent procreation of satellite models and bring them to caller products and industries,” per a institution blog station announcing the raise. World models are AI systems that conception interior representations of an situation truthful they tin program for aboriginal events, and galore apical minds judge they are indispensable to pushing beyond the limits of ample connection models.

Best known for its physics-aware AI video procreation models, Runway released its first satellite model successful December and present views the exertion arsenic cardinal to tackling large challenges crossed fields similar medicine, climate, energy, and robotics. While the institution has historically built a beardown lawsuit basal successful media, entertainment, and advertizing –  including a recent concern with Adobe – a spokesperson told TechCrunch that Runway is progressively seeing adoption successful gaming and robotics. 

Runway’s displacement comes amid intensifying contention among labs pursuing satellite models. Rivals see Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Google DeepMind, some of which precocious made their models publically available. 

The backing follows the merchandise of Gen 4.5, Runway’s latest video procreation model. Gen 4.5 allows users to make high-definition videos from substance prompts and introduces autochthonal audio, longform, multi-shot procreation capabilities, quality consistency, and precocious editing tools. 

The exemplary has earned Runway important credibility wrong the AI manufacture aft outperforming video procreation offerings from some Google and OpenAI connected respective benchmarks — a milestone that apt factored into capitalist interest. 

Beyond exemplary development, Runway has besides been expanding its infrastructure. The institution precocious signed a woody with CoreWeave to grow its compute capacity, a determination that whitethorn person helped reassure investors astir Runway’s quality to run successful a highly compute-intensive space. 

Looking ahead, Runway plans to usage the caller superior to rapidly grow its astir 140-person squad crossed research, engineering, and go-to-market, according to a institution spokesperson.

The circular was led by General Atlantic with information from Nvidia, Fidelity Management & Research, AllianceBernstein, Adobe Ventures, Mirae Asset, Emphatic Capital, Felicis, Premji, and AMD Ventures.