Utopia Music and Musimap higher-ups. Photo Credit: Utopia Music
Switzerland-based Utopia Music, which monitors global song plays, has officially acquired Musimap, an AI-powered music-analysis and -classification company backed by Quincy Jones.
Five-year-old Utopia Music, which intends to build “the next-generation infrastructure that will advance creator rights and enable new opportunities for the recordings business,” unveiled the buyout via a formal release that was emailed to DMN.
Higher-ups are remaining tight-lipped regarding the acquisition’s financial specifics, but Musimap was founded in 2015 and currently has a 17-person team. Additionally, the funding round that drew participation from Quincy Jones arrived in October of 2020 and totaled €700,000 ($812,078 at the present exchange rate), per Crunchbase.
Post-purchase, Utopia’s own team will encompass almost 150 employees, and execs indicated that Musimap’s infrastructure “will help create a gold standard for advanced metadata tagging and enrichment – connecting the right song to the right audience at the right time.”
On this front, the “unique emotional metadata” generated by Musimap enables clients including Universal Music, Warner Music, BMG, and Vevo “to search for similar songs, automatically create playlists based on certain genres, moods, etc., and match playlists with personality profiles,” according to the release.
In terms of Utopia Music’s international presence, the company after absorbing Liège-based Musimap will have divisions in Belgium, central Europe, and Canada. Additionally, Musimap is expected to continue providing services for its aforementioned existing clients while working to tag “80% of the global music catalogue with emotionally enriched metadata over the next few years.”
In a statement, 88-year-old Quincy Jones touted the capabilities of Musimap as well as his vision for the platform’s role in the music industry moving forward.
“Musimap’s technology is the FUTURE and it makes my soul smile to see it become the AI backbone of another tech giant. Teaming up with Utopia will undoubtedly unlock new doors for Musimap, and allow it to continue changing the way we consume music, and empower creators, through enhanced discoverability.
“From the looks of my personality profile, as provided by MusiMe, I can tell this machine has sharpened its left brain!! Big-time props to the team and I look forward to continuing in the exploration of music through emotions together,” finished Jones, who has also backed music NFT platform OneOf and ticketing platform Lyte.
2020 saw Spotify make several plays in the artificial-intelligence space, and 2021’s first nine months have brought a number of other noteworthy developments regarding AI’s role in the tech-driven music industry. BTS’s agency invested $3.6 million in an “AI voice” company back in February, for instance, and AI-powered Snafu Records raised $6 million earlier this month.