Overview
Cristóbal Valenzuela was born in 1989 in Chile. He is a technologist and the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Runway [1]. He founded the company in New York in 2018 together with Anastasis Germanidis and Alejandro Matamala [1]. Runway develops generative AI models, which create new images and video from text, pictures or existing footage.
Education and early research
Valenzuela studied economics, business management and design at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile [1]. He then studied media arts in the ITP programme at NYU Tisch [1]. While working as a researcher at ITP, he contributed to ml5.js, a machine-learning library for the web [1]. ml5.js is a software library that makes it easier for people to use machine-learning models in a browser.
Main contributions
The best-documented part of his work is co-founding Runway with Anastasis Germanidis and Alejandro Matamala in New York in 2018 [1]. Runway develops the Gen series of video models, which are covered in their own entries on this site.
Career
He holds the roles of co-founder and CEO at Runway. His link to the company began in 2018, the year the company was founded [1].
Impact
In September 2023 Valenzuela was named to the TIME100 AI list [1]. In 2024 Runway agreed a deal with the studio Lionsgate. On that deal he said: "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows." [2] The quote shows the goal he has described for Runway: tools for people who make films and other creative work.
Career timeline
1-
2018
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Runway
Founded、Worked at 2018–
Runway is a New York-based AI video company founded in 2018. It co-released Stable Diffusion in 2022, has built a series of video models from Gen-1 to Gen-4.5, and in February 2026 raised $315 million at a $5.3 billion valuation.
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Runway
Founded、Worked at 2018–
Worked at1
Founded1
20241
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PartnershipRunway partners with Lionsgate on a custom video model
In September 2024, Runway and Lionsgate announced a partnership to build a custom AI video model trained on Lionsgate's library of more than 20,000 film and TV titles, for use only by Lionsgate-affiliated filmmakers.
Notes and sources
- Cristóbal Valenzuelahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crist%C3%B3bal_Valenzuela
- Runway inks deal with Lionsgate in first team-up for AI provider and major movie studiohttps://venturebeat.com/ai/runway-inks-deal-with-lionsgate-in-first-team-up-for-ai-provider-and-major-movie-studio
Cite this page: Cristóbal Valenzuela. TellWorld, https://www.tellworld.net/people/cristobal-valenzuela. Updated 2026-11-08