American AI company Runway is planning a major expansion in London, CNBC has learned, following in the wake of Anthropic and OpenAI as U.S. tech companies increasingly look to tap into commercial and talent opportunities in the city.
Runway, which is building world models, on Monday exclusively told CNBC that the company plans to make London its new European headquarters and will invest more than $200 million into the U.K.’s AI ecosystem by the end of 2028.
The company most recently raised $315 million in a Series E, featuring General Atlantic, AMD Ventures and Nvidia, resulting in a $5.3 billion valuation.
“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. “We expect to expand further across Europe in the near future.”
Runway’s co-founders: Cristóbal Valenzuela, Alejandro Matamala Ortiz and Anastasis Germanidis. Credit: Runway
World models are AI systems that can learn from inputs such as audio, images, video and real-world data — in comparison to large language models (LLMs), which are primarily designed to understand and generate language rather than to model the physical world from real-world sensory inputs.
Runway is building those models, alongside offering a suite of video generation and editing tools.
“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,” Kanishka Narayan, the U.K.’s AI minister, said in a statement. “We want the world’s most ambitious AI firms to build their future here, and that is exactly what Runway is doing.”
Runway is one of several U.S. AI companies that have recently announced big growth plans for London footprints.
In April, Anthropic said it’s expanding its presence in London with new office space for 800 people, days after rival OpenAI unveiled plans for its first permanent office in the U.K. capital. Google also plans to move employees into a new U.K. headquarters this summer.
