Topline
Suno, an AI platform that turns text prompts into songs, said Wednesday it raised $250 million and is valued at $2.45 billion as it disrupts the music industry, with artists generated using its technology increasingly hitting the charts and major record labels suing for copyright infringement.
Mikey Shulman co-founded Suno and serves as CEO. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Boston Globe via Getty Images
Key Facts
Suno said in a statement Wednesday it raised $250 million in a funding round led by Menlo Ventures, with participants including NVentures, Nvidia’s venture capital arm, and Hallwood Media, a music management company that has increasingly invested in AI music.
Suno said the money will allow it to invest more in developing tools for users, also claiming nearly 100 million people have created music on its platform since its launch in 2023.
The company said its technology makes music creation more accessible, calling itself the “future of music”—though the platform has generated controversy and sparked pushback from major record labels, some of which have filed lawsuits alleging the technology is trained on copyrighted material.
Suno acknowledged Wednesday music generated using its technology is “being recognized by the industry’s most important charts,” likely referring to Xania Monet, an AI-generated “artist” whose vocals are entirely created on Suno and is charting on several Billboard R&B and radio charts.
What Is Suno?
Suno is a tool that lets users input text prompts, describing the sound and lyrical content they want, to create a song. A sample prompt Suno lists on its website shows a user asking to create a “groovy opera song about not being able to wait to see you again.” Suno says it creates two versions of the requested song, and users can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to refine results. Suno offers additional tools, like cropping or extending the audio, a remastering tool to refine audio and a “persona” option that lets users use similar vocals across multiple songs. Suno boasted in its Wednesday statement “top producers and songwriters have integrated Suno into their daily workflows.” Producer Timbaland has become one of the platform’s highest-profile advocates, partnering with Suno in October 2024 and using it to remix his songs. “God presented this tool to me,” Timbaland told Rolling Stone in March, stating he made “a thousand beats in three months.”