Moonvalley Raises $53M in Funding for AI Video Platform

Moonvalley, an LA-based startup creating AI tools for video generation, has secured additional funding just about a month after announcing it raised $43 million, according to an SEC filing.

The Thursday filing indicates Moonvalley has actually raised approximately $53 million in total so far, contributed by 14 undisclosed investors.

This filing represents an extra $10 million in capital, not a completely new funding round. PitchBook estimates the company's total funding now stands at roughly $124 million, following its $70 million seed round last November. Moonvalley has declined to provide further comment.

The proliferation of accessible video generation tools has resulted in a crowded marketplace with a surge of new providers. Startups including Runway, Lightricks, Genmo, Pika, Higgsfield, Kling, and Luma, alongside major tech players like OpenAI, Alibaba, and Google, are rapidly releasing new models. Often, it's difficult to tell one model apart from another.

Moonvalley's Marey model, developed in partnership with a new AI animation studio named Asteria, provides customization features such as detailed camera and motion controls. It can produce "HD" video clips lasting up to 30 seconds. Moonvalley also states its model presents a lower legal risk compared to some other video-generation systems.

However, Moonvalley aims to stand out—and attract significant venture capital interest—through the unique data it uses for training its models and the safety features integrated into its video creation platform.

Numerous generative video companies train their AI on publicly available data, some of which is copyrighted. These firms typically defend the practice under fair-use doctrines, though this hasn't prevented rights holders from raising objections and issuing legal demands to stop.

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Moonvalley reports it is collaborating with partners to manage licensing agreements and compile videos into curated datasets, which the company then acquires. This strategy mirrors approaches taken by Bria and Adobe, the latter of which sources training content from creators via its Adobe Stock service.

Moonvalley is also developing an interface for its model. The company's software, yet to be shown publicly, includes tools for storyboarding and making detailed clip adjustments, as shared by its co-founders in recent interviews. They claim Marey can create videos not only from text descriptions but also from sketches, photographs, and existing video clips.

Naeem Talukdar, formerly in charge of product growth at Zapier, established Moonvalley with ex-DeepMind researchers Mateusz Malinowski and Mik Binkowski. John Thomas joined as COO; he and Talukdar had previously co-founded another startup named Draft. Bryn Mooser, the head of Asteria, is also listed as a co-founder.

Artists and creators have legitimate concerns about video generators, as this technology has the potential to significantly disrupt the film and television sectors. A 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union for Hollywood animators and cartoonists, predicts over 100,000 jobs in the U.S. film, TV, and animation industries could be impacted by AI by 2026.

Moonvalley plans to let creators ask for their content to be excluded from its training data, enable customers to delete their information anytime, and provide an indemnity policy to safeguard users from potential copyright disputes.

In contrast to some "unfiltered" video models that can easily incorporate a person's likeness, Moonvalley is dedicated to implementing strong safety measures. Similar to OpenAI's Sora, Moonvalley's systems will filter out specific content, such as NSFW language, and will not permit users to generate videos featuring identifiable individuals or celebrities.

"We started Moonvalley to develop generative video technology that truly serves filmmakers and creative professionals," the company stated in a March blog post. "This involves tackling both the technical limitations that prevent AI from being a practical production tool and addressing the underlying fear and distrust in the industry."