Runway, an AI-powered video business, is apparently trying to fund $450 million at a valuation of $4 billion.
According to Reuters, the company is in talks with investors, citing unnamed sources in a paywalled article published by The Information on Tuesday (July 2).
According to Reuters, the company provides software that makes films based on text instructions or photos.
According to the report, Runway was valued at $1.5 billion after raising $141 million from Google, Nvidia, and other investors in June 2023.
When announcing the investment in a blog post, Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela stated that the company would expand its efforts to bring new multimodal AI technologies to market.
“Runway has been pushing the boundaries of creativity with artificial intelligence for the last five years, and we are excited to continue innovating on a new era of creative tools for artists and creators everywhere,” Valenzuela told the crowd.
“In 2023, we brought to market Gen-1 and Gen-2, the first of their kind video generation models. Today, our entire suite of AI Magic Tools are being used by Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, helping tell new types of stories, and streamline workflows.”
On June 17, the business released Gen-3 Alpha, claiming it is the first of a series of models taught by Runway on a new infrastructure designed for large-scale, multimodal training.
Gen-3 Alpha will power the company’s text-to-video, image-to-video, and text-to-image applications, as well as additional planned ones, according to a news statement.
“As part of the family of Gen-3 models, we have been collaborating and partnering with leading entertainment and media organizations to create custom versions of Gen-3,” Runway said in the release.
In another recent development in this arena, AI firm Luma AI introduced Dream Machine, a program that can generate lifelike movie footage from a few lines of text.
“This not only levels the playing field, it decimates it,” HP Newquist, executive director of The Relayer Group, told PYMNTS in an interview published in June. “For even those with a hint of interest, Dream Machine opens up an entire world of AI to them.”