The New York-based company’s Builders Program supports startups from seed to Series C stage in the fields of AI, media, and world simulation. World simulation refers to startups that use AI to build technology that can digitally model, recreate, and simulate parts of the real world.
Participating startups will also receive free API credits, allowing them to access and build Runway’s own AI models at low cost, the report added.
The move underscores Runway’s broader strategy to build an ecosystem around what the company calls “video intelligence,” meaning AI systems that can generate, edit and understand video content at scale.
Alejandro Matamara Ortiz, Runway’s co-founder and chief innovation officer, said the goal is to support new use cases across industries that the company itself may not have the capacity to fully pursue yet.
Fund structure
The fund is structured across three different channels: technical teams, construction companies and companies. While technical teams build core AI infrastructure and advanced frontier technologies, builders are startups that develop applications on top of these foundational models and transform core AI capabilities into practical user-facing products. Finally, enterprises are organizations that experiment with new forms of content creation, storytelling, and distribution.
Founding members of the fund include startups such as Cartesia, creative studio MSCHF, mental healthcare startup Oasys Health, fintech Spara, edtech startup Subject, and AI-powered sales demo agency Supersonic.
Runway’s investments to date
Runway has supported early-stage startups such as LanceDB, which builds databases optimized for AI applications, and Tamarind Bio, which applies AI to accelerate drug research and development.
Founded in 2018, Runway has emerged as a leading company in generative AI (GenAI), specifically video compositing and editing tools used by creators, studios, and enterprises. The company is valued at approximately $5.3 billion and has raised nearly $860 million to date.
The company’s investor base includes major companies such as Nvidia and Qatar Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.
