Runway AI raised $315 million in a Series E round at a $5.3 billion valuation, announced on February 10, 2026 and led by General Atlantic. The round pulled in a notably wide mix of strategic and crossover backers, including two chipmakers and a major publisher.
Here's the full breakdown of the raise, who backed it, and why the valuation jump matters.
What is Runway AI?
Runway is an AI platform for generative media creation, specializing in physics-aware world models for video generation — systems designed to simulate physics and predict how an environment evolves, with applications reaching beyond video into robotics training and interactive environments. Founded in 2018 by Cristóbal Valenzuela, Anastasis Germanidis and Alejandro Matamala, Runway was one of the earliest companies to commercialize generative video.
The raise: $315M Series E
The headline numbers:
- Amount: $315 million
- Round: Series E
- Valuation: $5.3 billion
- Announced: February 10, 2026
- Lead investor: General Atlantic
Runway's previous round was a $308 million Series D at a valuation north of $3 billion, closed in April 2025. Going from roughly $3 billion to $5.3 billion in about 10 months is a 76% jump — a steep climb even by 2026's AI-funding standards, and it follows a string of earlier rounds: a $2 million seed in 2018, an $8.5 million Series A in December 2020, a $35 million Series B in December 2021, a $50 million Series C in December 2022, and a $141 million Series C extension in June 2023.
Who invested in Runway AI?
The Series E was led by General Atlantic. Additional participants included:
- NVIDIA
- Adobe Ventures
- AMD Ventures
- Fidelity Management & Research Company
- Mirae Asset
- Emphatic Capital
- Felicis Ventures
- Premji Invest
- AllianceBernstein
Having both NVIDIA and AMD Ventures in the same round is notable — it suggests Runway's compute needs, and its ambitions for physics-aware world models, are significant enough to draw interest from rival chipmakers at once.
What Runway AI will do with the money
Runway said the funding will go toward pre-training its next generation of world models, bringing those models to new products and industries including medicine, climate, energy and robotics, expanding team capacity, and scaling Runway Studios, its AI film and animation production arm.
Why it matters
- World models are pulling investor attention away from narrow generative video. Runway's pitch has shifted from "make video from text" to building foundational systems that simulate physics — the kind of technology robotics and autonomous systems need to predict how the real world behaves.
- The valuation trajectory shows how fast conviction is building. A 76% jump in 10 months, on top of a $308 million round the year before, puts Runway among the fastest-appreciating companies in the biggest AI funding rounds of 2026.
- Runway's raise sits alongside a broader wave of AI video funding. It's one of several generative-media companies raising at scale this year, a trend tracked in AI video startup funding for 2026.
Source: AI video startup Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation
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