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Runway Announces $50M Series C Led by Felicis

By: via Business Wire

Generative AI market leader enters next phase of growth with funding from Felicis and additional investors, further scaling Runway’s pioneering customer suite

Runway, an applied AI research company building the next generation of creativity tools, today announced it has raised a $50M Series C led by new investor, Felicis. Existing investors Amplify Partners, Coatue, Compound, and Lux Capital participated in the round including new investor Madrona, further validating Runway’s generative AI leadership position and advancing its research of multimodal AI systems for content creation.

Runway is at the forefront of advancements in generative AI and creative AI, naming companies like CBS, New Balance, Harbor Picture Company, and Publicis as customers. It also developed Latent Diffusion and Stable Diffusion, state-of-the-art AI models for image generation. With these new funds, Runway will continue to accelerate its strategic business initiatives including broadening development of its robust suite of tools, particularly around audiovisual applications, hiring top-talent across engineering, research, GTM, and incorporating an in-house creative agency.

“Powered by proprietary cutting-edge AI research, Runway empowers individuals and leading creative teams all over the world to create multimedia content in magical ways and collaborate over a browser in 4K definition,” said Aydin Senkut, Founder and Managing Partner at Felicis. “We're thrilled to partner with Cris, Anastasis and Alejandro as they continue to grow and expand the universe of creative tools at a blazing-fast pace.”

Runway is doubling down on its efforts to democratize content creation and make professional multimedia creation more accessible. Since its last funding round in October 2021, the company has made significant progress in developing and scaling its offerings into new verticals, while broadening the accessibility of generative AI capabilities. Runway continues to expand its pioneering generative suite to serve the tens of millions of creative users that exist today, this includes:

  • AI Training: AI Training allows creators to train their own custom AI models by uploading a series of their own images.
  • AI Magic Tools: Runway’s suite of 30+ magic tools include text-to-image, image-to-image, replace background, green screen, erase-and-replace, frame interpolation, infinite image, and many more.
  • Teams Ready: Runway’s design-forward platform empowers a new generation of the creative workforce that operates in a remote or hybrid world.
  • High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models: Runway’s applied AI research team pioneered advancements in generative AI through their research on Latent Diffusion models. This architecture is the foundation for Stable Diffusion and other diffusion models for image and video generation.

“As content needs continue to skyrocket, creators will become overwhelmed by the volume of rote tasks their jobs require. Runway is pushing the boundaries of creativity and enabling creators to meet these demands and enhance their craft, while saving enterprises and creatives significant amounts of time and money with recent advancements in AI,” said Runway CEO and Co-Founder, Cristóbal Valenzuela. “We are thrilled to have the support of our newest investors, and our longtime partners which further validates our mission to define what’s possible with generative AI.”

About Runway

Runway is building the next generation of creative tools that makes machine learning easy and accessible for all types of creatives. With an active and growing community, Runway is pioneering how content and media are created. With a focus on video automation and synthetic media, Runway reduces the costs of creating visual media across creative industries. To learn more and sign up for a free account visit www.runwayml.com.

About Felicis

Founded in 2006, Felicis is a venture capital firm investing in companies reinventing core markets, as well as those creating frontier technologies. Felicis focuses on early stage investments and currently manages over $2.1B in capital across 8 funds. The firm is an early backer of more than 47 companies valued at $1B+. More than 100 of its portfolio companies have been acquired or gone public, including Adyen (IPO), Credit Karma (acq by Intuit), Cruise (acq by General Motors), Fitbit (IPO), Guardant Health (IPO), Meraki (acq by Cisco), Ring (acq by Amazon), and Shopify (IPO). The firm is based in Menlo Park, CA. Learn more at www.felicis.com.

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