Runway opens Tokyo office and commits $40M to Japan expansion

• Runway said it is opening a Tokyo office and committing an initial $40 million to Japan, according to runwayml's announcement and the linked official expansion post.
• Japan is already Runway's third-largest market globally, while Cristóbal Valenzuela's post said it is also the company's fastest-growing self-serve market in Asia.
• Runway said it tripled its enterprise customer base in Japan over the last 12 months, with runwayml's thread naming Yamaha, NHN, and SoftBank as adopters.
• The expansion is aimed at local media, gaming, advertising, and robotics work, per runwayml's announcement, and Runway is already pointing people to local hiring through the official post.

You can jump from Runway's official post to the Tokyo gathering application page, and Cristóbal Valenzuela's event post shows Runway pairing the office launch with a May 21 Tokyo event alongside Rhizomatiks, FIL Tokyo, and Daito Manabe.

Runway framed Japan as one of its largest and fastest-growing markets, then attached real money to that claim: an initial $40 million commitment and a new Tokyo office. The linked official announcement says the move is meant to put the company closer to Japanese customers and new hires.

For creative teams, the notable part is not just geographic expansion. Runway is building local sales and support around video, marketing, and content production workflows in a country where media, gaming, and design tooling already have heavyweight domestic ecosystems.

The clearest growth numbers came in two layers:

• Japan is Runway's third-largest market among enterprise and self-serve customers, according to Cristóbal Valenzuela's post.
• It is the fastest-growing self-serve market in Asia, per the same post.
• Enterprise customers grew 300% over the last 12 months, according to Valenzuela's post and runwayml's announcement.
• Runway cited Yamaha, NHN, and SoftBank as current adopters in marketing, advertising, and creative content, according to runwayml's thread.

That mix matters because it is not just startup experimentation. The named customers span consumer tech, telecom, and brand-heavy media work, which is exactly where AI video and image generation tools tend to get operationalized first.

Runway is turning the expansion into an in-person Tokyo push almost immediately. Cristóbal Valenzuela's post announced a May 21 gathering with Rhizomatiks and FIL Tokyo, with Valenzuela sharing the stage with Daito Manabe.

The attached poster in the event post lays out a talk session, open conversation, DJ, and VJ programming, which makes the event look more like a creative community activation than a pure corporate launch. The application page is live at FIL Tokyo.