Ioana Hreninciuc
Co-Founder at Runware
11 Dec 2025Slack CEO OpenAI, EU Midas List, SpaceX $1.5T IPO, Nick Clegg VC Arc
Runware's Iona: out of stealth with a $50M Series A
After technical trouble getting her connected, Iona — co-founder of Runware — joins minutes after the company came out of stealth with a $50M Series A, just three months after its $13M seed. She explains the 'one API for all AI' media-generation platform and how 16 years working with co-founder Flaviu on pre-AWS bare-metal infrastructure led to custom inference hardware that runs open-source models about 10x cheaper, on a hybrid platform that also wraps closed-source model APIs. She covers being preempted into the round, the 2026 roadmap (adding LLMs and 3D to a 400,000+ model library, modular global inference pods, scaling a 36-person team across 15 countries) and argues AI output is reaching production grade, with SMEs among the biggest beneficiaries.
Top Investor List: Cyber Starts, Accel, GC & Project A
After wrapping a quick note on Figma's mispriced IPO, the hosts continue down their ranked list of top investors: Gili Ranen of Cyber Starts (Wiz, Fireblocks, Island), Accel's Luciana Alexandru who led Miro's $25M Series A, General Catalyst's Jeanette Zufertzenberg who founded La Familia, and Project A's Florian Heinemann. They note Wiz's pending $32B Google acquisition and flag which of these investors have previously appeared on ETN.
Jack Cully on Granola's AI Notepad & Word-of-Mouth Growth
Granola marketing lead Jack Cully explains the product: an AI notepad for back-to-back meetings that enhances your own notes rather than just dumping transcripts. He credits founders Sam and Chris' year of prototyping and focus on real user problems for the organic word of mouth, and describes what it feels like to have a product that sells itself. He also compares the role to explaining novel products during his Monzo years and outlines 2026 plans around team features and a first real outbound sales push.