Runway launches $10M fund to support early-stage AI startups

Runway, known for its AI video generation models, is expanding its horizons by launching a $10 million venture fund to invest in early-stage companies across AI, media, and world simulation. The company's founders shared with TechCrunch that they are also rolling out a Builders program offering seed to Series C startups free API credits, indicating Runway's ambition to create an ecosystem around what they term 'video intelligence.'

Runway has established itself as a leading player in AI video generation, with its tools used across film, advertising, and marketing. With the launch of its 'general world models' last December, the company is pushing beyond creative tooling into broader applications, seeking to tap startups as a means to explore use cases it cannot pursue alone.

According to Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Runway, the company believes that through video, it can achieve video intelligence, opening up a wider set of use cases across different industries. The fund's thesis is divided into three areas: technical teams pushing the frontier of AI and building new architectures; builders creating the application layer on top of foundation models; and companies experimenting with new forms of media creation, storytelling, and distribution.

For the past year and a half, Runway has quietly supported a handful of early-stage founders and companies, including 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 firm Cartesia, are working on products that complement Runway's own tools.

Runway has raised nearly $860 million to date from backers like Nvidia and Qatar Investment Authority, and is valued at around $5.3 billion post-money. The fund will provide investments of up to $500,000 for pre-seed and seed-stage startups. Runway is not the only AI startup turning to invest in early-stage companies; OpenAI with its Startup Fund and AI search startup Perplexity, which launched its own $50 million venture fund last year, are also actively investing in new startups.

The Builders program is already live, with eligible startups able to apply for 500,000 API credits and access to Characters, Runway's recently released real-time video agent API. Characters allow users to interact with generative AI agents in real time. The program aims to see what startups build with this technology and already includes companies like Cartesia and MSCHF, using Characters for various applications including AI customer support agents and personalized onboarding experiences.