Cologne, Germany. Photo Credit: Roman Bürki
Self-described artificial intelligence “music tagging and search firm” Cyanite has announced the acquisition of Aptone, an AI-powered sample classification platform, as it hunts for growth on the international stage.
Berlin-headquartered Cyanite, which arrived on the scene in 2019, unveiled the buyout of Cologne-based Aptone today. According to its website, Cyanite uses AI to expedite tagging, uncover “up to 80% of manual tagging mistakes,” and lay the groundwork for both keyword and audio-soundalike searches.
Besides Bertelsmann’s BMG and RTL, Cyanite is said to count as clients UMPG Music Solutions, Nettwerk, and Synchtank, to name some. Aptone, on the other hand, debuted in 2021 and according to its own website allowed “users to manage and search audio files in the cloud.” The involved files were “enriched with metadata” in the process, per the same source.
Now, Aptone co-founder Johannes Giani is set to join Cyanite’s board as director of information technology, a role that execs say will see him “help Cyanite to further develop its technology and continue to enhance and expand the offering” for global clients.
Meanwhile, the overarching buyout will assist the purchasing company in “achieving its vision of creating a universal intelligence that understands, indexes and recommends the world’s music,” per higher-ups. Cyanite pointed specifically to an anticipated tagging-accuracy improvement, which the business expects to fuel a “growing opportunity for music publishers to maximise the monetisation of their catalogues.”
Given this prediction and the exit of Aptone co-founders excepting Giani, it appears that the entity is being absorbed directly into the older of the AI developers. It’s unclear whether Aptone’s other employees (two to 10 individuals total, the appropriate LinkedIn page shows) will come aboard the post-deal operation, but Aptone’s website indicates that the platform “is no longer available.”
Addressing the transaction, Cyanite CEO Markus Schwarzer (who previously led Groovecat, an app that automatically matched pictures with music) emphasized the rapidly expanding song libraries available via streaming services.
“Johannes’ addition to the team comes at a crucial time – there has never been more music available than today; we need technology to help us to handle it,” Schwarzer said in part. “Our vision of a universal music intelligence has always been clear, and with this acquisition we will be able to advance this vision even further.”
Last week, AI music platform DAACI announced a pair of purchases, and Universal Music Group partnered with relaxation app Endel to create music using “ethical AI.” Nevertheless, multiple artists and professionals are speaking out against the perceived long-term threat posed by the unprecedented and quick-evolving technology.