Musical AI secures $4.5m to power fairer AI music attribution
Rights management startup, Musical AI has raised funding to help improve attribution of copyrighted material used to train AI.
For better or worse, AI music continues to reshape the music industry, but questions around rights, credit, and payment are still at the front of people’s minds. A company called Musical AI believes it has part of the answer. This week, the startup announced that it has raised $4.5 million in new funding to grow its AI attribution and licensing technology, according to reporting from Music Business Worldwide.
Musical AI, formerly known as Somms.ai, launched its rights management platform in 2024. It had a clear goal from the beginning, which was to solve the lack of systems that properly track and license copyrighted works used to train generative AI models. As MBW explains, the company’s technology can trace which training data influences specific AI-generated outputs and calculate what percentage of a generated result comes from each source.
The new funding round was led by Heavybit, with additional backing from the Business Development Bank of Canada and Build Ventures.
As Musically notes, this investment comes at a time when more AI companies are signing licensing deals with music rightsholders, opening the door for infrastructure-focused startups like Musical AI to scale. AI music may be controversial, but it is a rising tide that cannot simply be held back. Perhaps the best-case scenario now is better regulation and technology, such as Musical AI’s platform, that helps prevent artists and creators from being stepped over.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to grow its team, improve its attribution tools, and build more partnerships across the music industry before expanding into other creative sectors. Its technology is designed to serve both sides of the AI equation. Rightsholders can see where their work appears in AI training datasets and remove content they do not want used. At the same time, AI companies can access licensed data and pay rightsholders on an ongoing basis.
Musical AI CEO Sean Power has rejected the idea that attribution and licensing are incompatible with generative AI, stating, “Some claim attribution, licensing and AI are incompatible, or that only the largest players in the business can deploy it due to the cost and complexity. We have proved them wrong.” He added, as reported by MBW, “We are demonstrating that we can provide attribution and licensing infrastructure to everyone interested in generative AI. And we can not only license IP but also pay all involved rightsholders accurately and consistently.”
The company already works with Pro Sound Effects, SourceAudio, Symphonic Distribution, and SoundBreak AI. Explaining that partnership, CEO and Better Than Ezra frontman Kevin Griffin said: “Our business is built upon using licensed data sets with attribution for our AI model. Working with Musical AI is a perfect fit.”
Heavybit’s Jesse Robbins described the wider impact, saying: “Musical AI’s attribution technology is essential infrastructure that will enable and accelerate every media-focused AI product.”