Metallica, which co-founded AudioShake backer Black Squirrel Partners, performing live. Photo Credit: Kreepin Deth
With considerable interest – and capital – continuing to reach the quick-evolving artificial intelligence space, AI music-separation startup AudioShake has raised $2.7 million from Metallica-founded Black Squirrel Partners, Peermusic, AJR, and others.
San Francisco-based AudioShake unveiled its latest multimillion-dollar round (and touted the headway it’s made since launching three years ago) in an email to Digital Music News. Billed as an “award-winning stem separation” tool, the AI-powered offering was established by CISAC and Google vet Jessica Powell (who doubles as CEO) and Tunebend co-founder Luke Miner (who serves as CTO).
According to the AudioShake CEO, Indicator Ventures led this newest round, which is said to have increased the AI company’s total capital raised to $5 million. Precursor Ventures (which backed AudioShake in October of 2021) and Splinterlands investor Side Door Ventures also participated, per the AI business, as did Alphabet/Google’s Black Angel Group, Audius CEO Roneil Rumburg, S-Curve Records head Steve Greenberg, and Crush Music.
AudioShake disclosed plans to put the $2.7 million at hand towards expanding its research and engineering teams while likewise optimizing its AI model training. Moreover, higher-ups took the opportunity to indicate that their business’s client list includes “departments from all three major label groups” as well as Reservoir, Primary Wave, Hipgnosis, Concord, and Downtown.
Addressing the raise, Jessica Powell communicated in part: “We’ve been thrilled by the adoption of our technology across the entertainment and tech industries, and are excited to now see third-party implementations of our music and speech separation technologies taking off thanks to our APIs.”
And in remarks of his own, S-Curve Records CEO Steve Greenberg (who manages the aforementioned AJR) relayed in part: “I find AudioShake’s stem separation technology to be nothing short of magical. To hear, in isolation, individual musicians’ performances on tracks from the days before multi-track recording is a real revelation. I look forward to contemporary recording artists incorporating such performances into new works in creative ways, with, of course, the approval of the original musicians and rightsholders.”
AudioShake’s $2.7 million round arrives about one week after Sound Ventures detailed a $240 million AI fund as well as investments in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Anthropic, and StabilityAI.
Meanwhile, besides delivering a substantial number of songs created with artificial intelligence, 2023’s first four or so months have brought funding rounds for AI music companies including Myxt ($2 million), Unhurd (a seven-figure sum, though the precise total hasn’t been publicly revealed), and Rivet ($500,000 in pre-seed capital).