SoundCloud acquires Musiio to improve AI music curation

An online audio sharing platform and streamer, SoundCloud has acquired an AI music curation company, Musiio. Using its team and technology, SoundCloud plans to fortify its music discovery features. So far, the terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Founded in 2018 and based in Singapore, Musiio built an AI that can tune in or listen to music faster than any human practically could, tag the audio, and curate playlists. The AI feature assists prediction of songs a listener would want to hear next. And how would this ultimately profit SoundCloud? This is when users start to spend more time on the streaming platform.

After receiving its $1 million seed round, the company collaborated with its first public client, the Free Music Archive (FMA). Musiio helped recovered a few songs that had been lost in the sprawling catalog’ within two days surfacing one eight-year-old track by doubling its plays.

Creative programming some would say. But the advantage of AI curation means that it can bring forth lesser known tunes and artists to new listeners, although nothing will ever replace the originality of a hand-selected track list on a mixtape.

When Music Press Asia last covered Musiio after it launches its NFT Song Slicer 1.0 to help artists maximise song revenues, it had found its heart directly centered on increasing the value of an artist’s creative process; cashing in on the most valuable part of a song.

SoundCloud president Eliah Seton believes that anyone can upload music regardless of whether they’re signed to a label or distributor. And with the capability of Musiio’s AI will result in especially interesting results for users on a platform like SoundCloud.

While Seton didn’t specifically identify the type of new features users can expect to see but added that he anticipates Musiio’s technology will enable SoundCloud to “know what tracks are moving before anyone else.”

SoundCloud, founded in 2007, claims to be streaming over 300 million tracks from 30 million creators from over 190 countries. As recent as 2020, it raised $75 million from SiriusXM.

Musiio pulled in a $1 million seed round in 2019, a capital that came from Singapore’s Wavemaker Partners, U.S. investor Exponential Creativity Ventures and undisclosed angels. The deal made Musiio the first venture capital-backed music AI startup in Southeast Asia. Prior to that, it had raised $57,000 as part of its involvement in EF, the London-based accelerator that has big ambitions in Asia.

The post SoundCloud acquires Musiio to improve AI music curation appeared first on Music Press Asia.