Snafu Records strikes chord with €6.4M funding for AI-powered A&R tool

Sweden-based record label Snafu Records, known for its AI-powered A&R tool, has raised $7 million or €6.4 million in equity and credit.

Pophouse Entertainment took the lead in the latest funding round. Other notable contributors included co-founder of Supercell Mikko Kodisoja, music manager Marc Jordan through his investment fund Blue Amber Investments and Danish venture capital firm Blackwood Ventures.

Snafu employs an AI A&R tool called EMMA to identify undervalued artists using various metrics. The tool analyses millions of data points extracted from over 150,000 songs each week.

Snafu’s proprietary algorithms allow it to pinpoint artists whose music deserves more attention and amplification. Snafu claims its EMMA has identified many emerging talents for the Snafu Records label.

A notable example is the song “Maybe My Soulmate Died” by iamnotshane, which gained significant popularity on TikTok. Since its release last year, the track has amassed over 75 million streams across various platforms.

To support these artists, Snafu provides upfront cash advances and implements “catalogue growth strategies” through its recently introduced Snafu Song Fund.

Snafu Records emphasises that it does not get rights from artists through its fund. If Snafu’s AI identifies a song by an independent artist and forecasts a certain revenue level over two years, the label would offer the artist an advance and a short-term contract of around two years.

Snafu guarantees that once the contract ends and the artist has recouped their advance, they maintain full ownership of their artistic creations.

Besides the Snafu Song Fund, Snafu Records said that if an artist enters into a full-label deal, the master rights are divided with a 50/50 split.

Mira Howard, the head of Snafu’s Song Fund, said the fund had provided $2 million or €1,8 million in advances to independent artists in a few months. Snafu reports that it has collaborated with over 30 artists through the fund.

According to Snafu, it has inked deals with approximately 75 artists, counting notable names such as Hit-Boy, RANI and Bayli, in addition to iamnotshane.

The CEO and founder of Snafu Records, Ankit Desai, said the recognition of AI’s potential to revolutionise the music industry was the driving force behind the establishment of Snafu.

“As creators at heart, we wanted to leverage this technology to uplift the numerous talented artists worldwide,” he said. “Rather than focusing on generative AI, our intent has always been to craft algorithms that spotlight undervalued talent across the globe.”

Desai noted that despite the daily release of “incredible human-created music”, much of it goes unheard. He also said that Snafu had entered this business due to a deep appreciation for the “unifying power of music”.