Runway Raises $308 Million to Speed Filmmaking With AI

Video AI firm Runway has reportedly been valued at $3 billion after raising $308 million.

The deal is set to be announced Thursday (April 3), Bloomberg News reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The report noted that Runway set off a frenzy around artificial intelligence (AI) video generators in 2023 after it debuted a model that could produce — in Bloomberg’s words — “slightly choppy-looking” developed from prompts like “drone footage of a desert landscape.”

Runway co-founder/CEO Cris Valenzuela told Bloomberg that the company plans to use the funding to boost its research into AI models and add to its creative team, hiring filmmakers, screenwriters, producers and editors who would create films with Runway’s software.

He added that as Runway’s software improves, it will become more and more possible to employ it to accelerate the filmmaking process.

“Films, in my opinion, should work in shorter timelines,” Valenzuela said, adding that the goal is to allow creatives to work at a pace similar to that of Saturday Night Live. “If you have a good story, you can probably go from Monday to Saturday and make it like SNL does.”

The new funding round follows reports from last year that Runway was looking to raise $450 million at a valuation of $4 billion.

In related news, PYMNTS earlier this week examined the resurgence of Getty Images — known for its high-quality photography, illustrations and stock images — amid the mass adoption of AI image generation.

The company has embraced generative AI; it’s in the middle of acquiring its largest competitor, Shutterstock, in a $3.7 billion deal, and in the process is working on a strategy to position it well for a generative AI future.

Grant Farhall, Getty’s chief product officer, told PYMNTS that the company’s competitive strength comes its library of licensed images at a time when companies are avoiding content that infringes on a creator’s copyright.

Getty contends that trust — bolstered by decades of content curation — sets it apart, as customers are less concerned with flashy AI tools and more with what will allow them to create faster and smarter content without running into legal troubles.

“Customers are using our tool largely because of the fact that it’s commercially safe,” Farhall said. “That’s one of the main reasons why customers have been hesitant to use these [image generation] tools. … The number one hesitation is around the legal risks and the brand risks.”