Overview
- Dawn Capital led the round with participation from Insight Partners, a16z Speedrun, Comcast Ventures, Speedinvest, Zero Prime Ventures and Begin Capital, and Dawn partner Shamillah Bankiya is joining the board.
- Runware, founded in 2023 by Flaviu Radulescu and Ioana Hreninciuc, offers one API to run image, video and audio generation across open-source models using custom inference hardware.
- The company says the funds will expand infrastructure, add headcount beyond roughly 25 employees, and support a push to host more than 2 million models by the end of 2026.
- Runware claims faster performance and lower costs versus incumbents, citing up to 10x speed gains, 30–40% outperformance on open-source models and 5–10x cost savings, with modular inference PODs deployed near users and per-generation pricing.
- Reported usage metrics vary by outlet, with TechCrunch citing over 5 billion creations from more than 100,000 developers and others reporting over 10 billion from more than 200,000, figures attributed to the company; customers named include Wix, Quora and others.