Runway AI, Inc.
To build AI to simulate the world through merging art and science by developing world models as general-purpose simulators. Democratizing content creation and making professional-quality creative tools accessible to all creators.
Founding Story
The three founders met between 2015 and 2016 while studying at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts ITP programme, united by a desire to understand algorithmic methods for generating and automating content. They were researchers and students focused on machine learning models for creative media. After observing how computational creativity and neural techniques could serve artists, they officially founded Runway in 2018 to focus on the frontiers of artificial intelligence. The company initially raised a $2 million seed round to build infrastructure for deploying models at scale for multimedia. It originally functioned as a model directory before shifting to build deeper AI-enabled video editing tools. Their goal was to democratize content creation and filmmaking, making it accessible to everyone regardless of artistic background or resources, treating AI as a 'new camera' for a new form of art and storytelling.
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Leadership
Founders
Cristóbal Valenzuela Barrera
Born and raised in Chile. Studied economics, design, business, and software in Chile for 7-8 years, followed by 2.5 years studying and researching AI at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts ITP programme. Researcher focused on computer vision and machine learning for creative fields. Co-founded research project Rango during his studies at NYU. Declined an offer from Adobe to found Runway in 2018. Currently serves as CEO.
Anastasis Germanidis
Met co-founders at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts ITP programme while working on machine learning models for creative media, particularly image and video segmentation. Greek national. Currently serves as CTO.
Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz
Met co-founders at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts ITP programme while working on machine learning models for creative media, particularly image and video segmentation. Chilean national. Currently serves as Chief Design Officer (CDO).
Executive Team
Cristóbal Valenzuela Barrera
Co-founder and CEO
Chilean artist and developer. Studied at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Researcher in computer vision and ML for creative fields. Previously co-founded research project Rango at NYU.
Anastasis Germanidis
Co-founder and CTO
Greek technologist and researcher. Met co-founders at NYU Tisch School of the Arts ITP programme while researching ML models for image and video segmentation.
Business Model
Revenue Model
SaaS (Software as a Service) subscription model with tiered pricing, API usage fees, enterprise custom solutions, and strategic partnerships with content licensing. Revenue generated through monthly/annual subscriptions, metered GPU-minute charges, credit-based system for video generation, model licensing deals, and custom enterprise integrations.
Pricing Tiers
Limited credits, 720p resolution, limited storage and projects
625 credits, 4K resolution, unlimited projects
Additional credits and customization options beyond Standard tier
Unlimited video generation, 2,250 credits per month
High security, custom integrations, model fine-tuning with proprietary datasets, enhanced features, volume pricing with pre-purchased credit bundles
Target Markets
- Film and television production studios
- Post-production and visual effects companies
- Advertising and creative agencies
- Marketing departments of major brands
- Independent filmmakers and content creators
- Music video producers and musicians
- Film and video production
- Pre-production and storyboarding
- Post-production and visual effects
- Marketing and advertising campaigns
- Brand content creation
- Television production and editing
- Lionsgate Entertainment
- Netflix
- Disney
- AMC Networks
History & Milestones
Announced advancement of video generation with NVIDIA Rubin Platform
Introduction of Gen-4 research and world simulators
Raised $308 million Series D led by General Atlantic at $3 billion valuation
Introduction of Runway Aleph multimodal simulator
Released Gen-4.5, ranking No. 1 on Video Arena leaderboard
