Runware Raises $13M Seed to Help Customers Achieve up to 10x Cost Savings on AI Media Generation

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Runware, a performance & price-focused AI-as-a-Service provider, today announced a $13M fundraise led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from previous investors a16z Speedrun, Begin Capital, and Zero Prime. The funding will be used to expand Runware's capabilities from image and video generation to all-media workflows, including audio, LLM, and 3D. To date, more than 4B visual assets have been generated on Runware's inference engine and over 100K developers have been onboarded in less than a year since launch. The platform hosts +400K AI models and powers media inference for more than 250M end users through customers like Quora, NightCafe, OpenArt, FocalML.

Runware runs its AI media generation API on the proprietary Sonic Inference Engine^®, which integrates custom-designed hardware and bespoke software to achieve greater cost efficiency and generation speed. As compute intensive workloads like video generation gain popularity and GPU costs burn through budgets, consumer AI apps are increasingly looking to cut costs. Specialized solutions like Runware deliver all-media generation and provide up to 10x cost savings on implementation & inference. Alongside inference savings, Runware's API unifies all model providers under a common data standard, reducing the time engineering teams spend on adding a new model to minutes through a simple parameter change.

All-Media Generation in one API: Images, Video, Audio, LLM

Following its recent round, Runware is investing heavily in extending its inference engine and API to all AI media workloads. The company already integrates all image and video models integrated from Black Forest Labs, OpenAI, Ideogram, ByteDance, Kling, Minimax Hailuo, Google Veo, PixVerse, Vidu, Alibaba Wan & Qwen, and is actively expanding into audio and LLM models. A full featured media generator or content creation tool can now be built with Runware's API in minutes. Its model hub currently hosts +400K AI generation models.

By supporting all media generation on its inference engine, Runware takes the complexity out of AI integration. Its API can replace the need for tens or hundreds of individual model integrations, or massive in-house infrastructure, ML teams, and six-figure R&D budgets. Many product teams can now ship AI media features same-day, with no setup. Across media and model types, Runware aims to be the fastest, cheapest, most flexible API for any and all AI workloads.

"As more and more models launch, devs can have tens or even hundreds of endpoints to integrate with and maintain. We see model providers now moving to our platform and offering their APIs from our inference pod, because we can deliver up to 90% lower inference cost than any cloud provider." Flaviu Radulescu, Founder at Runware

How Runware cuts generation costs by up to 90%

Runware's ability to make fundamental hardware optimizations is based on Flaviu Radulescu's previous 20 years of experience building bare metal data clusters for clients like Vodafone, Booking.com, and Transport for London. Runware designs and builds its own custom GPU and networking hardware, packaged in a proprietary inference pod optimized for rapid deployment and use of cost-effective renewable energy. Its vertically integrated design can reduce inference costs by up to 90%—savings passed on to clients.

"Runware is a hidden gem every serious AI application should consider. It offers incredibly competitive pricing across top models, consistently strong performance, and responsive, helpful customer support. If you're building with AI, Runware should be on your radar." Coco Mao, CEO at OpenArt

"The core of Runware's advantage is its purpose-built Sonic Inference Engine®. While others often rely on commodity cloud infrastructure, Runware built its own workload-specific infrastructure — giving it control over latency, throughput, and cost at a fundamental level. That technical edge can be transformational and is what makes Runware a performance leader in AI media generation." George Mathew, Managing Director at Insight Partners. Mathew joins Runware's board as part of the fundraise.

Unlocking developer flexibility

Runware delivers its cost and performance edge without compromising quality or flexibility, thanks to its custom Sonic Inference Engine^® and developer API. Built for composable workflows, it lets developers mix and match models from day one, integrating new ones into existing pipelines. Features previously limited to image generation, such as batch processing, parallel inference, ComfyUI support, and ControlNet or LoRA editing, now extend to video.

"We chose Runware as our primary inference partner for their price and the flexibility of the API. NightCafe users are avid explorers of AI - they want to try all the models, hyperparameters, LoRAs and other options. On other providers there are often different endpoints for all these things, but not a single endpoint that combines them all. On Runware it's a single endpoint that we send all the user's options to. It also happens to be less than half - sometimes less than 1/5 - of the cost of other providers." Angus Russell, Founder at NightCafe

"We moved to Runware on a day where we had a big traffic surge. Their API was easy to integrate and handled the sudden load very smoothly. Their combination of quality, speed, and price was by far the best in the market, and they've been excellent partners as we've scaled up." Robert Cunningham, Co-Founder at Focal

About Runware

Runware delivers AI-as-a-Service at 90% lower cost and with higher speed than competitors. Built for scale, the service has already powered 4 billion+ creations for +100K developers and +250M end-users worldwide. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in San Francisco, Runware is backed by Insight Partners and a16z Speedrun. Learn more about Runware at runware.ai.

About Insight Partners

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. As of December 31, 2024, the firm has over $90B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 800 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO. Headquartered in New York City, Insight has offices in London, Tel Aviv, and the Bay Area. Insight's mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with tailored, hands-on software expertise along their growth journey, from their first investment to IPO. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on X @insightpartners.

SOURCE Runware