The Deals: Reservoir Acquires José Felicianos Recorded Catalog; SoundCloud Pacts With AI Platform Moises

Moises, an “ethically trained AI-powered creative suite,†partnered with SoundCloud to connect its AI-powered tools with SoundCloud's artist and fan community globally, according to a press release. The release adds that the partnership will allow musicians to bring their existing SoundCloud tracks into Moises to “practice, produce, collaborate, and reimagine their work.†The Moises platform offers capabilities including stem separation, chord and lyric detection, AI-assisted mixing and mastering, and real-time collaboration. With the integration, Moises Pro subscribers will receive a two-month trial to SoundCloud Artist Pro, and vice versa.

New York-based Too Lost Music Group entered into a definitive partnership agreement to acquire indie music distributor Xelon Entertainment, which has operations across APAC and the U.K. The parties expect the deal to close by the end of this year, subject to regulatory approvals. Xelon, which heavily focuses on dance and electronic music, works with record labels including Australia's Sweat It Out, Central Station Records and Balance Music; and global labels 23rd Precinct, Unearthed African Recordings, Urbana Recordings and Paul Oakenfold's label Perfecto. Ashley Gay will continue to serve as president of Xelon while joining Too Lost's leadership team, driving business development efforts in Australia, New Zealand, the broader APAC region and the U.K. and Europe.

The deal follows Too Lost's July acquisiton of Brisbane, Australia-based distributor GYRO.Group.

Hive, an event marketing platform built for the live events business, raised $27 million in a Series B funding round from Frontier Growth. Founded in 2014 by Ian Roberts and Patrick Hannigan, Hive boasts a client list of more than 1,600 venues, promoters and festivals, which use the platform to connect fan purchase data with email, SMS, advertising and CRM tools. Hive has more than 40 ticketing integrations with companies including Ticketmaster, AXS, Eventim, Etix, Tixr and DICE that bring ticket buyer and event data directly into its platform. The company is next looking to develop AI-powered assistants to help event teams work faster by simplifying branded campaign preparation, reducing repetitive tasks and helping teams act on data to drive ticket sales.

Defected Records founder Simon Dunmore acquired a majority stake in indie music platform House Culture, which began as an Instagram page started by Stephen Hedge and Richard Clark that eventually drew 100,000 followers and grew to encompass a podcast, curated playlists and events. Following the acquisition, plans include developing House Culture into a “global platform dedicated to documenting, celebrating and furthering†house music culture, with the podcast and radio show being used as a foundation for a broader suite of offerings including original features, video, YouTube, playlists, a newsletter, events and music releases.

The relationship with Dunmore began when he appeared as a guest on the House Culture Podcast. House Culture will continue operating on a collaborative basis, with Dunmore joining Hedge and Clark along with contributors Matt Rouse, Nick Gordon Brown and Steve Banks.

AI music company GRAI partnered with MassiveMusic, a part of Songtradr, on the music infrastructure behind its forthcoming social streaming service (made possible by GRAI's previously announced acquisition of Hangout) and a dedicated dataset licensed for training its music foundation model. Under the first agreement between the companies, MassiveMusic will deliver commercial repertoire to GRAI from participating indie and distributor catalogs.

According to a press release, “Tracks arrive with permissions assigned as determined by the applicable rightsholder agreements, and approved titles are available on GRAI within minutes of MassiveMusic sending them. The feed is designed to scale to the catalog licensed for GRAI through MassiveMusic, and building on MassiveMusic's existing infrastructure supports a quicker path to launch. Rightsholders will be paid and receive usage reports for plays on GRAI under the applicable agreements.â€

MassiveMusic will also provide enhanced metadata, describing tracks across dimensions including mood and energy, instrumentation, key and era. The metadata will be used for search and recommendations on GRAI.

A second agreement between the two companies covers AI training. Through this, GRAI will train its model on a “dedicated, opt-in dataset approved by rightsholders specifically for AI training through MassiveMusic's opt-in system,†according to the release. It adds that the “training license does not itself authorize downstream creative uses of recordings or compositions.â€

Warner Music India announced a series of catalog acquisitions and partnerships, including the acquisition of the Gemini Music catalog; a long-term music deal with filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon covering past and future releases; and a partnership with Malayalam film production and distribution house Magic Frames. The deals expand the company's presence in South India, building on its majority investment in Divo in 2023. Together, Warner India and Divo are investing in catalogs, securing partnerships and expanding their repertoire across Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada music.

The Gemini Music catalog includes Tamil film soundtracks including Thalapathy Vijay's Nanban and Thuppakki, Dhanush's Mayakkam Enna, Suriya's Singam 2 and Bala's Paradesi, featuring scores from composers such as Harris Jayaraj, G. V. Prakash Kumar and Devi Sri Prasad. The Menon catalog includes film soundtracks, music and upcoming releases, including tracks like “Maruvaarthai†(Enai Noki Paayum Thota) and A.R. Rahman's “Thalli Pogathey†(Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada). Magic Frames' catalog includes more than 500 tracks and a pipeline of future releases, including music from films like Kaduva, Jana Gana Mana,Driving Licence, Gold and Vilayath Buddha. Warner India will serve as the global release partner for all future soundtrack and music video releases from films produced, acquired or distributed by Magic Frames.

Lyrics provider Musixmatch acquired Music Reports, owner of independent music registry Songdex. In a blog post, Musixmatch calls Sondex “one of the rarest things in this industry: a registry with no bias. It doesn't collect for some writers and not others, and it has no stake in how a claim resolves. When Songdex says who owns a song, it has no reason to say anything but the truth. That independence is what makes it valuable, and it stays intact as Songdex becomes part of the Musixmatch ecosystem.†The deal also brings Music Reports' Blokur, a rights-matching technology, into Musixmatch.

AEG Presents acquired France-based artist production and development company Auguri Productions, which has helped launch the careers of French and French-speaking artists including Stromae, Angèle, Louane, Julien Doré, David Guetta, Dominique A, Philippe Katerine, -M-, Gazo, Sofiane Pamart, Tiakola, Gaël Faye, Vanessa Paradis, Thomas Dutronc, Yodelice and Jain. According to a press release, Auguri “will leverage the scale, expertise and international network of AEG Presents, unlocking new development opportunities for its artists and helping connect local talent with global audiences.â€

GasLab, a new generative AI music platform created by DJ and producer Reinier Zonneveld, raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. Investors in the round include Bitpanda co-founder and executive chairman Eric Demuth, WeTransfer founder Bas Beerens and other European entrepreneurs. A press release notes that the money will be used to “support GasLab through its next phase on its journey to become the leading global GenAI platform for music that is transparent and fairly attributed, with an attribution engine that could also serve other GenAI platforms.â€

GasLab is described in the release as a platform that “gives the music industry a complete end-to-end system for AI music. Artists and labels who allow for their music to be used in training its AI model will be able to see exactly how their work helped shape each generated track, and will be paid for it.†Meanwhile, creators on the platform “will instantly see which tracks and artists shaped the song that they have generated.â€

According to the press release, Zonneveld and his business partner Cas Luuring began working on machine learning eight years ago, a process that led to the creation of Zonneveld's AI model R2, which he trained on his own catalog. Also involved in GasLab is former VC partner and Uber general manager Thijs Emondts.

GasLab is currently inviting those interested in creating music on the platform to join the guest list for private testing ahead of a public launch.

Music metadata infrastructure company Music Story signed a multi-year partnership with Sonos that will help make the intelligence behind Sonos' smart speakers “more fluent in music,†according to a press release. Sonos will now use Music Story's metadata, which is refreshed as catalogs evolve, to enhance music discoverability and lead to its devices to play fewer incorrect tracks, among other aims.

“When customers ask Sonos to play their favorite artist, album, or song, they want to be confident that, within an instant, the music they expected will start coming out of the speaker, every time,†said Nick Millington, chief innovation officer at Sonos, in a statement. “Easy to say, but impossible to achieve without accurate, up-to-date metadata. Music Story is the right partner to provide this essential service at the quality bar Sonos customers demand.â€

Stockholm- and London-based synch licensing company MAIA Universe announced several new industry partnerships, including with BMG, covering both publishing and recordings; Kobalt Music for publishing; and Warner Music Group and Cooking Vinyl for recordings. MAIA had existing partnerships with more than 200 labels and 90 publishing partners, including Warner Chappell Music and Sony Music Publishing. According to a press release, roughly 10,000 tracks are added to MAIA Universe's synch discovery engine each week.

In addition to the new partners, MAIA Universe was tapped by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) “as part of its enhanced operating model in order to streamline and drive sync licensing opportunities for its members,†according to a press release. The MCPS and MAIA pilot will go live in early 2027, ahead of a wider rollout over the course of the year. MAIA Universe has received investment from producers, songwriters and other industry players including MxM, Björn Ulvaeus and the RMV team, led by Ludvig Andersson.

Marathon Live signed a strategic content partnership with AEG Presents across its network of venues, including The Truman (Kansas City), The Hawthorn (St. Louis), The Hall (Little Rock), Marathon Music Works (Nashville), The Signal (Chattanooga) and FIVE (Jacksonville).

ArtMaster, the Prague-based maker of the AI-powered Artie piano learning app, raised a $2.4 million seed round. New investors include Factorial Capital, Reflex Capital, Moises, Nir Zicherman (founder of the Spotify-acquired Anchor), Grant Davis (founder of Krea-acquired Wand) and Eliska Vorel (Google/Deep Mind, PM at Gemini). The company will use the funding to continue to build and refine AI models supporting the development of creative skills, starting with musical performance. According to a press release, Artie drew more than 500,000 users within a year of launch and saw paying subscribers and monthly recurring revenue grow 38% and 39%, respectively, since October 2025.