Runway is moving beyond building AI video models to shaping what is built on top of them.
An AI video generation startup has launched a $10 million venture fund to invest in early-stage companies building AI, media and world simulations, the company's founders told TechCrunch. It's also rolling out a Builders program that provides free API credits to startups from seed to Series C, a move that signals Runway wants to build an ecosystem around what it calls “video intelligence.”
Runway has become one of the leading companies in AI video generation, with its tools used across film, advertising, and marketing. But with the launch of its “Generic World Model” last December, the company is now moving beyond creative tools into broader applications. And the company is looking to use startups as a way to explore use cases it can't pursue on its own.
“We think we will reach video intelligence through video, and we think it will open up a wide range of use cases in different industries. We can't double this right now, but we may be able to support it with research,” Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Runway, told TechCrunch.
Runway's fund papers are divided into three buckets.
Tech teams pioneering the frontiers of AI and building new kinds of architectures. Builders create application layers on top of the underlying model and deploy AI to new use cases. Companies experimenting with new forms of media creation, storytelling, and distribution.
Over the past year and a half, Runway has quietly supported a small number of early-stage founders and companies, Matamara-Ortiz said. These include LanceDB, which builds databases for AI applications, and Tamarind Bio, which uses AI to design new proteins for drug discovery. Some startups, like real-time audio generation company Cartesia, are working on products that complement their own offerings.
“The next generation of AI models will be built on multimodal data that combines video, audio, images, and text,” Chang She, co-founder and CEO of LanceDB, told TechCrunch in a statement. “LanceDB is building the infrastructure layer to make that possible, and Runway is one of the few investors who understands why that is important.”
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Runway has raised nearly $860 million so far from backers including Nvidia and the Qatar Investment Authority, and is valued at about $5.3 billion post-money. The company plans to seed a $10 million fund from existing investors and close partners and write checks of up to $500,000 to pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
Runway isn't the only AI startup pivoting to investing in companies that are just beginning their journey. OpenAI is the OG of 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 back AI companies.
“Many companies like ours are investing heavily in the fundamentals to unlock new application sets and new types of companies,” said Matamara Ortiz. “For a fairly small company like us, which still only has 150 employees, we can't focus on everything, but we see an opportunity in partnering very early on with new teams who can benefit from what we're doing.”
Architecture using characters
A sample character created by Runway. Image credit: Runway AI
The same philosophy is what's driving our new program for Runway Builders. Eligible early-stage startups can begin applying to the program to receive 500,000 API credits and access to Runway's recently released Characters, a real-time video agent API that leverages a new family of common world models.
Characters allow users to interact with generative AI agents in real time, giving them faces and voices ranging from cartoon-like to photo-realistic. The Builders program is designed, in part, to see what startups build with their technology.
“Until then [recently]there was no possibility to speak with a real-time video agent, so we are seriously trying to see which teams realize the potential and positive impact of this technology, ”said Matamara-Ortiz.
The program is already live and founding members include Cartesia, MSCHF, Oasys Health, Spara, Subject, and Supersonic. They use characters to power AI customer support agents, interactive brand characters, personalized onboarding experiences, real-time sales assistants, synthetic media tools, and more.
Matamara-Ortiz said he is excited about the potential of telemedicine and education. And since entertainment is Runway's bread and butter, Matamara-Ortiz said she expects the characters to be used in games and new kinds of entertainment experiences.
“This is part of our general world model, and what we're pushing next is a series of interactive, real-time, immersive models,” Matamara-Ortiz said. “When you start putting all these elements together, you can imagine being able to generate and simulate entire environments and be able to engage and interact with characters in these worlds.”
Other startups like Inworld and Charisma are also building interactive AI characters for games and storytelling, and companies like StoReel are experimenting with AI-generated shows that users can directly engage with. Some, like Character AI, are already popular as AI characters that can talk.
“We truly believe that a new kind of internet is emerging that is more personalized, more immersive, and more real-time,” Matamara-Ortiz said.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Alejandro Matamara Ortiz's title and last name. He's not a chief design officer, he's a chief innovation officer. Additionally, his last name is hyphenated. He should be called Matamara Ortiz, not Ortiz.