Runway, a startup that specializes in developing a range of generative AI models for media production, including video generation, has secured $308 million in funding through a Series D round.

The funding round was led by General Atlantic, with participation from notable investors such as Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others. According to a press release, the fresh capital will be utilized for AI research and hiring, as well as expanding Runway’s film and animation production arm, Runway Studios.

To date, Runway has raised a total of $536.5 million, as reported by Crunchbase.

In a statement, Runway emphasized the significance of this milestone, stating that it marks a crucial step towards creating a new media ecosystem with world simulators. The company highlighted that its recent advancements are not merely incremental improvements, but rather form the foundation for an entirely new approach to media, built on AI systems that can simulate the world.

Runway offers a suite of AI media tools, including models for generating videos and images. Although the company faces stiff competition in the video generation space from players like OpenAI and Google, it has made efforts to differentiate itself, including securing a deal with a major Hollywood studio and allocating millions of dollars to fund films using AI-generated video.

Recently, Runway released Gen-4, a video-generating model that reportedly enables the creation of consistent characters, locations, and objects across scenes, maintains coherent world environments, and regenerates elements from different perspectives and positions within scenes. With products like Gen-4 and its API for video models, Runway aims to achieve $300 million in annualized revenue this year.

However, a potential obstacle for Runway is a lawsuit filed by artists against the company and other generative AI companies, alleging that they trained their models on copyrighted artwork without permission. Runway argues that the fair use doctrine protects it from legal repercussions, but the outcome of the case remains uncertain.

Updated 6:21 a.m. Pacific: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that Runway had raised $300 million in its Series D round, when in fact, the company has raised $308 million.