AI video startup Runway AI Inc. has secured $141 million in funding from investors including Google, Nvidia, and Salesforce. The funding round is an extension of a $50 million Series C financing round led by Felicis Ventures in December. With this new investment, Runway has raised a total of approximately $237 million. The latest funding values the New York-based startup at $1.5 billion, marking a significant increase from its $500 million valuation in December.
Runway specializes in AI-based film and editing tools and has been at the forefront of the growing interest in generative AI. While many AI startups have focused on chatbots and image generation, Runway aims to push the boundaries of AI technology in the video realm. Generating videos from written prompts is a complex task that requires accounting for various factors, such as physics and consistency. Runway plans to allocate the funding towards further research and development of video and image generation AI models, focusing on improving consistency and controllability.
Runway’s latest product, Gen-2, is an AI system capable of generating short, silent videos in response to written text. The company also offers web-based editing tools for filmmakers and has contributed to the development of the Stable Diffusion text-to-image AI model. The investment from prominent companies like Google and Nvidia underscores the potential impact of Runway’s technology on the content creation industry. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, expressed the transformative power of generative AI in revolutionizing storytelling and content creation.
As video generation through AI is still in its early stages, Runway’s funding round highlights the growing interest in this field and the potential for AI to reshape the way artists work and bring ideas to life.
