\n<\/p>\n
AI video generation startup Runway<\/a> doesn\u2019t have the typical Silicon Valley pedigree. No Stanford founders, no ex-Google founders, no nine-figure seed round that bought them time to ignore revenue. Its three founders \u2014 two from Chile, one from Greece \u2014\u00a0 met at NYU\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts and built the company in New York.<\/p>\n Runway also could be, depending on who you ask, one of the most consequential AI companies today. Not because of what it has built, but because of what it is trying to build next.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the past several years, the AI industry has largely operated on the premise that intelligence lives in language. Large language models like OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT and Anthropic\u2019s Claude reflect that bet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Runway, alongside other competitors, is making a different one. Its founders believe the next form of AI intelligence won\u2019t be built from text, but from video and world models that learn how the world works, not just how humans describe it. That distinction sounds academic. Its implications are not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Runway co-Founder and co-CEO Anastasis Germanidis said training models directly on observational data from the world is the next frontier of AI. The companies that get there first, he argues, won\u2019t be the ones who perfected language.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re basically bound by our own understanding of reality,\u201d Germanidis told TechCrunch from Runway\u2019s homey sunlight-filled headquarters near Union Square. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cLanguage models are trained on the entire internet, on message boards and social media, on textbooks \u2014 distilling the existing human knowledge,\u201d Germanidis continued. \u201cBut to get beyond that, we need to leverage less biased data.\u201d<\/p>\n Founded in 2018, Runway built its reputation on video-generation models<\/a> \u2014 including its latest Gen-4.5 \u2014 and AI tools that let people turn text prompts into editable, cinematic content. <\/p>\n Today, Runway\u2019s technology powers production workflows for filmmakers and ad agencies, and the company has signed deals with major media players like Lionsgate<\/a> and AMC Networks. Its tools have even been used in films such as \u201cEverything Everywhere All At Once<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Runway is now valued at $5.3 billion<\/a> and, according to one of its founders, added $40 million in annual recurring revenue<\/a> in the second quarter of 2026. <\/p>\n If Runway\u2019s bet that video generation is the path to world models pays off, the result will be felt from Hollywood to drug discovery. If it doesn\u2019t, Runway risks being outpaced by competitors with far deeper pockets \u2014 Google chief among them.<\/p>\n \nTaking the leap<\/h2>\n