Runway is moving beyond creating AI video models and shaping what is created over them.
The AI video generation startup has launched a $10 million venture fund to invest in early-stage companies in AI, media and world simulation, the company’s founders told TechCrunch. It’s also launching a Builders Program that offers free API credits to Series C startups, a move that suggests Runway wants to build an ecosystem around “video intelligence.”
Runway has become one of the leading players in AI video generation, with its tools used in film, advertising and marketing. But with the launch of its “General World Model” last December, the company is now emphasizing broader applications beyond creative tooling. And it’s looking to use the startup as a way to explore use cases that it can’t pursue alone.
“We think that through video, we’re going to have access to video intelligence, and it’s going to open up broader use cases in different industries that we can’t double down on today, but maybe we can support in our research,” Runway co-founder and chief design officer Alejandro Matamala Ortiz told TechCrunch.
Runway’s thesis for the fund is divided into three buckets:
- Technical teams that are pushing the boundaries of AI and creating new types of architecture.
- Builders are building application layers on top of the foundation model and bringing AI to new use cases.
- Companies are experimenting with new forms of media creation, storytelling and distribution.
For the past year and a half, Runway has quietly supported some early-stage founders and companies, Ortiz said. These include LanceDB, which creates databases for AI applications, and Tamarind Bio, which uses AI to design new proteins for drug discovery. Some startups, such as real-time audio generation firm Cartesia, are working on products that complement this.
“The next generation of AI models will be built simultaneously on multimodal data – video, audio, images, text,” Chang Xi, co-founder and CEO of LanceDB, told TechCrunch in a statement. “LanceDB is building the infrastructure layer that makes this possible, and Runway is one of the few investors that understands why this matters.”
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Runway has raised about $860 million so far from backers like Nvidia and Qatar Investment Authority, and is valued post-money at about $5.3 billion. It created a $10 million fund with existing investors and close partners, with plans to write checks of up to $500,000 to pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
Runway isn’t the only AI startup that is stepping up to invest in companies just starting their journey. OpenAI is OG with its startup funds, and AI search startup Perplexity launched its own $50 million venture fund for seed-stage startups last year. CoreWeave also launched CoreWeave Ventures in September to support AI companies.
“Many companies like ours are investing heavily in primitives that will unlock a new set of applications or new types of companies,” Ortiz said. “Companies like ours that are still quite small with only 150 people can’t focus on everything. But we see opportunities to partner very quickly with new teams that can benefit from what we’re doing.”
building with characters
This philosophy is driving Runway’s new program for builders. Eligible early-stage startups can begin applying to the program to receive 500,000 API credits and access to Character, Runway’s recently released real-time video agent API powered by its new family of common world models.
Characters let users interact with generative AI agents in real time, giving them a face and voice that can range from cartoonish to photorealistic. The Builders Program is designed in part to see what startups build with technology.
“Until [recently]We didn’t have the possibility to talk to a real-time video agent, so we’re really trying to see which teams see the potential and positive impact of this technology, Ortiz said.
The program is already live, with a founding group that includes Cartesia, MSCHF, Oasis Health, Spara, Subject and Supersonic. They’re using characters to power things like AI customer support agents, interactive brand characters, personalized onboarding experiences, real-time sales assistants, and synthetic media tools.
Ortiz said she’s excited about the possibilities of telemedicine and education. And since entertainment is Runaways’ bread and butter, Ortiz said he hopes the characters will be used in gaming and new types of entertainment experiences.
“This is part of our general world model that we are pushing forward: a set of models that is interactive, real-time, and immersive,” Ortiz said. “When you start combining all these pieces, you can imagine that you’ll be able to generate and simulate entire environments, and participate and interact with characters in these worlds.”
Other startups like Inworld and Charisma are also creating interactive AI characters for games and storytelling, while companies like Storell are experimenting with AI-generated shows that users can directly engage with. Some, like Character AI, are already popular for their AI characters that you can talk to.
“We really believe there is a new kind of internet that will be more personalized, more immersive and in real time,” Ortiz said.
