#series-e-funding

#series-e-funding

The fresh funds will allow Runway to "pre-train the next generation of world models and bring them to new products and industries," per a company blog post announcing the raise. World models are AI systems that construct internal representations of an environment so they can plan for future events, and many top minds believe they are essential to pushing beyond the limits of large language models.

British startup Synthesia, whose AI platform helps companies create interactive training videos, has raised a $200 million Series E round of funding that brings its valuation to $4 billion - up from $2.1 billion just a year ago. Unlike some other AI startups that are still a long way from turning a profit, Synthesia has found a lucrative business in transforming corporate training thanks to AI-generated avatars.

Nevada-based Redwood employees around 1,200 employees, so the cuts affect a few dozen workers. The company, founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, initially focused on recycling scrap from battery cell production, consumer electronics, and used EV batteries. The company extracts materials like cobalt, nickel, and lithium from those discarded goods and then sells them back to its customers, which includes Panasonic. Redwood has since added cathode production.

The Silicon Valley startup announced Thursday that several investors, including existing backer Baillie Gifford, added another $97 million to its Series E round. New investors include Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures. Uber, which last month said it would make a "multi-hundred-million dollar" investment in Nuro as part of a broader deal with the electric car maker Lucid, also participated.