LONDON — Runway plans to establish London as its new European headquarters and invest more than $200 million into the U.K.'s AI ecosystem by the end of 2028. The company also expects to expand further across Europe in the near future.
The New York-based artificial intelligence company, which builds world models and offers a suite of video generation and editing tools, will anchor its European operations in London. World models are AI systems that can learn from inputs such as audio, images, video, and real-world data, differing from large language models that primarily process text.
"London puts us close to many of our largest European customers already doing serious work with Runway, including BBC, Fremantle and WPP, and it builds on the research team we already have here," Anastasis Germanidis, cofounder and Co-CEO at Runway, told CNBC. "The talent pool is exceptional, and London felt like the right place to start," he added.
Runway’s commitment follows its most recent $315 million Series E funding round, which included investments from General Atlantic, AMD Ventures, and Nvidia. The company now holds a $5.3 billion valuation.
Kanishka Narayan, the U.K.'s AI minister, welcomed the move in a statement. "Runway's new London hub will bring pioneering research into world models to the UK, helping power breakthroughs across industries from film and gaming to science and robotics." Narayan added, "We want the world's most ambitious AI firms to build their future here, and that is exactly what Runway is doing."