Runway isn’t just building tools for making AI-generated videos anymore. The company is starting to shape the future of what gets built using those tools, placing its bets on the next wave of creative and technical innovation.
Today, Runway’s founders revealed to TechCrunch that the company is launching a $10 million venture fund. This fund is focused on early-stage teams working at the intersections of AI, new media, and world simulation. There’s more: alongside this, they’ve rolled out a Builders program. Startups at seed through Series C can now tap into free API credits—an offer that hints at Runway’s larger ambition. They’re not content with being a vendor of creative software; they want to spark an entire ecosystem—one grounded in what they pointedly call “video intelligence.”
Once best known for slick AI-powered video tools popular with filmmakers and marketers, Runway marked an evolutionary leap last December with the release of their “general world models.” These models stretch far beyond editing tricks and artistic flourishes. Now, the company sees itself as an engine for much broader applications—applications it realizes it can’t pioneer singlehandedly.
“We think video is the channel that leads to real video intelligence,” says Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz, Runway’s co-founder and chief innovation officer. His voice is both pragmatic and expectant. “That will unlock a much wider array of uses in all kinds of industries, many of which we simply can’t explore on our own. But maybe we can help make them possible through our research and support.”
The investment thesis behind Runway’s new fund is clear, but expansive. First, there are the technical visionaries developing fresh AI architectures at the foundation level. Then, the application builders—those layering new interfaces and practical uses over foundational models, carrying AI into uncharted territory. Finally, there are creators experimenting with media itself—with how stories get told, how content gets shared, reimagined, or experienced.
Matamala-Ortiz admits that for the past year and a half, Runway has quietly supported a handful of promising early-stage companies: LanceDB, maker of databases tailored for AI workloads; Tamarind Bio, which deploys machine learning to invent new proteins for drug development; Cartesia, a trailblazer in real-time audio generation—whose products naturally complement Runway’s own. “The next generation of AI will be deeply multimodal—video, audio, imagery, text all woven together,” says Chang She, CEO of LanceDB. “We’re constructing the very infrastructure for that future. Runway truly gets why this matters.”
Runway is no stranger to big bets. Backed by titans like Nvidia and the Qatar Investment Authority, the company has pulled in nearly $860 million in funding so far, with a post-money valuation hovering around $5.3 billion. This $10 million fund draws from existing investors and close partners. The plan? Write checks up to $500,000 for pre-seed and seed deals.
They aren’t alone in this move. OpenAI was perhaps the first, with its much-publicized Startup Fund. Perplexity, an upstart in AI search, announced its own $50 million seed vehicle last year. CoreWeave also jumped in, backing young AI firms.
“There’s a surge of companies, ours included, investing at a very foundational level, betting these primitives will make entirely new kinds of applications—and new sorts of companies—possible,” Matamala-Ortiz explains. “But we’re still a relatively small outfit—150 people. We can’t chase everything at once. Seeking out startup partners, especially right from the outset, lets us reach further than we could alone.”
This collaborative logic is at the heart of Runway’s new Builders program. Early-stage founders can now apply for 500,000 API credits and gain access to Characters—Runway’s latest real-time video agent API, powered by their newest general world models.
Characters is more than code—it’s a way for users to meet and interact with AI personas in real time. These agents can appear cartoonish or photoreal, speaking with human-like voices. What will startups build with this technology? That, for Runway, is the next big question.
Matamala-Ortiz is frank: “Until now, nobody could really have a live conversation with a video agent. We want to see which teams recognize the possibilities, which ones can turn this technology into concrete, positive impacts.”
The Builders program has already welcomed its first cohort—Cartesia, MSCHF, Oasys Health, Spara, Subject, and Supersonik, among others. Their projects? AI-driven customer support, interactive brand mascots, onboarding flows tailored by AI, sales agents that answer in real time, and new forms of synthetic media.
Telemedicine and education? Massive potential, thinks Matamala-Ortiz. Entertainment, though, remains in Runway’s blood—he expects Characters will find eager hands among game designers and digital storytellers. “This is where we’re going,” he says. “We want models that are interactive, real time, immersive. Imagine generating whole worlds, stepping inside them, and holding actual conversations with their inhabitants.”
Runway isn’t alone here, either. Startups like Inworld and Charisma are also developing AI-based game characters, while StoReel is experimenting with AI-powered, interactive TV shows. Character.AI is already attracting attention with its virtual personalities.
Matamala-Ortiz frames it simply: “The internet’s next chapter will be customized, immersive, alive—and built in real time.”
A correction: Alejandro is chief innovation officer, not chief design officer—and yes, Matamala-Ortiz is always hyphenated.
