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

AI video generation startup Runway has raised a $315 million Series E round, nearly doubling its valuation to $5.3 billion, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. 

The fresh funds will allow Runway to “pre-train the next generation of world models and bring them to new products and industries,” per a company blog post announcing the raise. World models are AI systems that construct internal representations of an environment so they can plan for future events, and many top minds believe they are essential to pushing beyond the limits of large language models.

Best known for its physics-aware AI video generation models, Runway released its first world model in December and now views the technology as central to tackling major challenges across fields like medicine, climate, energy, and robotics. While the company has historically built a strong customer base in media, entertainment, and advertising –  including a recent partnership with Adobe – a spokesperson told TechCrunch that Runway is increasingly seeing adoption in gaming and robotics. 

Runway’s shift comes amid intensifying competition among labs pursuing world models. Rivals include Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Google DeepMind, both of which recently made their models publicly available. 

The funding follows the release of Gen 4.5, Runway’s latest video generation model. Gen 4.5 allows users to generate high-definition videos from text prompts and introduces native audio, longform, multi-shot generation capabilities, character consistency, and advanced editing tools. 

The model has earned Runway significant credibility within the AI industry after outperforming video generation offerings from both Google and OpenAI on several benchmarks — a milestone that likely factored into investor interest. 

Beyond model development, Runway has also been expanding its infrastructure. The company recently signed a deal with CoreWeave to expand its compute capacity, a move that may have helped reassure investors about Runway’s ability to operate in a highly compute-intensive space. 

Looking ahead, Runway plans to use the new capital to rapidly expand its roughly 140-person team across research, engineering, and go-to-market, according to a company spokesperson.

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