July 14 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence research

company Moonvalley has raised $84 million more in a funding

round led by existing investor General Catalyst, it said on

Monday, a week after releasing its first video AI model.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Tech heavyweights including OpenAI and Alphabet

are looking to get a leg-up in the lucrative entertainment

industry, as film studios seek to use generative AI to speed up

content creation and cut costs.

But video and image generation tools have also led to

lawsuits by major film studios against AI companies, accusing

them of copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Moonvalley said the investment will help it meet enterprise

demand, expand content library and build features that partners

have requested.

CoreWeave ( CRWV ), Khosla Ventures and YCombinator also

invested in the round.

CONTEXT

Moonvalley last week released its first licensed AI video

model for professional production.

Last month, visual effects veteran Ed Ulbrich, who worked on

films such as "Titanic" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin

Button," joined Moonvalley as head of strategic growth and

partnerships.

The company had raised $70 million in November last year,

bringing the total funding to $154 million.

KEY QUOTE

"Our relationship provides Moonvalley with access to

advanced compute resources - including the latest GPU systems,"

Brannin McBee, co-founder and chief development officer for

CoreWeave ( CRWV ), said.