Los Angeles-based startup Moonvalley, which is developing AI tools for video creation, has raised a fresh $43 million in venture capital, according to an SEC filing.
The filing lists 11 unnamed investors and comes roughly a week after Moonvalley launched its first AI video-generating model, Marey. Moonvalley previously raised $70 million in seed funding from backers including General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
A spokesperson for Moonvalley told TechCrunch that the filing “does not dictate the total funding number” and that “the actual number will be formalized and announced in the coming weeks.”
The wide availability of tools to build video generators has led to such a Cambrian explosion of vendors that the space risks becoming oversaturated. Startups such as Runway and Luma as well as tech giants like OpenAI and Google are releasing models at a fast clip, and in many cases, little distinguishes one from another.
Moonvalley’s Marey model, built in collaboration with a new AI animation studio called Asteria, offers customization options like fine-grained camera and motion controls, and can generate “HD” clips up to 30 seconds long. Moonvalley claims it’s also lower risk than some other video generation models from a legal perspective.
Many generative video startups train models on public data, some of which is invariably copyrighted. These companies argue that fair-use doctrine shields the practice, but that hasn’t stopped rights holders from lodging complaints and filing cease and desists.
Moonvalley says it’s working with partners to handle licensing arrangements and package videos into datasets that the company then purchases. The approach is similar to Adobe’s, which also procures video footage for training from creators through its Adobe Stock platform.
Many artists and creators are understandably wary of video generators, as they threaten to upend the film and television industry. A 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union representing Hollywood animators and cartoonists, estimates that more than 100,000 U.S.-based film, television, and animation jobs will be disrupted by AI by 2026.
Moonvalley intends to allow creators to request their content be removed from its models, let customers delete their data at any time, and offer an indemnity policy to protect its users from copyright challenges.
Unlike some “unfiltered” video models that readily insert a person’s likeness into clips, Moonvalley is also committing to building guardrails around its tools. Like OpenAI’s Sora, Moonvalley’s models will block certain content, like NSFW phrases, and won’t allow people to prompt them to generate videos of specific people or celebrities.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/
