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Roughly a month after\u00a0Moonvalley<\/a>, a Los Angeles-based startup developing AI tools for video creation, said it secured $43 million in new funding<\/a>, the company has raised more, according to a filing<\/a> with the SEC.<\/p>\n The filing, submitted Thursday, reveals that Moonvalley actually landed (so far) around $53 million total from a group of 14 unnamed investors. <\/p>\n The filing indicates that this is an additional $10 million in cash, rather than a whole new round. It brings the company\u2019s total raised to about $124 million, estimates Pitchbook<\/a>, following on the heels of Moonvalley\u2019s $70 million seed round<\/a> last November. Moonvalley declined to comment.<\/p>\n The wide availability of tools to build video generators has led to such an explosion of providers that the space is becoming saturated. Startups such as\u00a0Runway<\/a>, Lightricks<\/a>, Genmo, Pika<\/a>, Higgsfield<\/a>, Kling,\u00a0and Luma<\/a>, as well as tech giants like\u00a0OpenAI<\/a>, Alibaba, and\u00a0Google<\/a>, are releasing models at a fast clip. In many cases, little distinguishes one model from another.<\/p>\n Moonvalley\u2019s Marey model, built in collaboration with a\u00a0new AI animation studio<\/a>\u00a0called Asteria, offers customization options like fine-grained camera and motion controls, and can generate \u201cHD\u201d clips up to 30 seconds long. Moonvalley claims it\u2019s also lower risk than some other video generation models from a legal perspective.<\/p>\n But where Moonvalley is attempting to differentiate itself \u2014 hence the high VC interest \u2014 is on the data it\u2019s using to train its models, as well as the safeguards in its video creation tools.<\/p>\n Many generative video startups train models on public data, some of which is invariably copyrighted. These companies argue that\u00a0fair-use<\/a>\u00a0doctrine shields the practice, but that hasn\u2019t stopped rights holders\u00a0from lodging complaints<\/a>\u00a0and filing cease and desists.<\/p>\n Moonvalley says it\u2019s working with partners to handle licensing arrangements and package videos into datasets that the company then purchases. The approach is similar to Bria\u2019s and\u00a0Adobe\u2019s<\/a>, the latter of which procures content for training from creators through its proprietary Adobe Stock platform.<\/p>\n Moonvalley is also crafting an interface for its model. The company\u2019s software, which it hasn\u2019t previewed publicly yet, has storyboarding and \u201cgranular\u201d clip adjustment tools, Moonvalley\u2019s co-founders revealed in recent interviews<\/a>. Marey can generate videos not only from text prompts but sketches, photos, and other video clips, claims<\/a> Moonvalley<\/a>.<\/p>\n Naeem Talukdar, who previously led product growth at Zapier, founded Moonvalley with former DeepMind scientists Mateusz Malinowski and Mik Binkowski. John Thomas joined as Moonvalley\u2019s COO \u2014 he and Talukdar had founded another startup, Draft, several years ago. Moonvalley also counts Asteria head Bryn Mooser as a co-founder. <\/p>\n Many artists and creators are understandably wary of video generators, as they threaten to upend the film and television industry. A 2024\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union representing Hollywood animators and cartoonists, estimates that more than 100,000 U.S.-based film, television, and animation jobs will be disrupted by AI by 2026.<\/p>\n Moonvalley intends to allow creators to request their content be removed from its models, let customers delete their data at any time, and offer an\u00a0indemnity policy<\/a>\u00a0to protect its users from copyright challenges.<\/p>\n Unlike some \u201cunfiltered\u201d video models that readily insert a person\u2019s likeness into clips, Moonvalley is also committing to building guardrails around its tools. Like OpenAI\u2019s Sora, Moonvalley\u2019s models will block certain content, like NSFW phrases, and won\u2019t allow users to prompt them to generate videos of specific people or celebrities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe founded Moonvalley to make generative video technology that works for filmmakers and creative professionals,\u201d Moonvalley wrote in a blog post<\/a> in March. \u201cThat means addressing fear and distrust, as well as solving technical problems that keep generative AI from being a realistic tool for professional production.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n