Snafu Records, a record label and A&R tool that uses artificial intelligence to discover new music, has completed a $6 million funding round led by Pophouse Ventures, with participation from TheVentureCollective, ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog and Academy Award and Grammy nominee Savan Kotecha.
The label also unveiled two new tools: Blurry, a songwriting collaboration platform, and Fine.Art, a peer-to-peer financing program for breakout artists, that will both launch this fall.
Since launching in February 2020, Snafu has signed 45 artists to its platform, including multiple Grammy winner Hit-Boy and Grammy nominees NEVADA and Kosine.
Using its own AI algorithm, Snafu says its aims with Blurry is to match songs created by producers and songwriters with major artists to create “viral pop success.”
Fine.Art (Finance for Artists), meanwhile, is a peer-to-peer financial service that lets artists allocate a part of their streaming revenues to invest in their peers.
The program is designed to help musicians build equity in one another’s work by exchanging a portion of future earnings for upfront payment.
Snafu is using its new $6 million funding round to hone and refine its “talent-identifying algorithm”, which it says is “able to repeatedly predict the artists most likely to show rapid and explosive follower growth in the future.”
Snafu’s algorithm analyzes new music on platforms including Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok, and has evolved from analyzing 150,000 undiscovered songs per week to more than 1 million per week.
Snafu evaluates songs based on factors such as growth volume, listener engagement and the structure of the songs themselves.
The company says artists that sign with the label gain access to Snafu’s network of industry experts, in-house marketing team, and more.
“With Blurry, my hope is to find new, talented people to collaborate with.”
Albin Nedler, Snafu artist, producer and songwriter
Albin Nedler, Snafu artist, producer and songwriter, said: “Every songwriter has a library of incredible songs that are just sitting on a hard drive, waiting to find the right artist to perform them.
“With Blurry, my hope is to find new, talented people to collaborate with that I wouldn’t have had the chance to connect with otherwise.”
“Snafu is focused on using technology […] to enable the superstars of tomorrow.”
Ankit Desai, Snafu
Ankit Desai, Snafu CEO and founder, said: “Snafu is focused on using technology as well as our incredible creative team to enable the superstars of tomorrow.
“Both Blurry and Fine Art will make it easier for up-and-coming artists to achieve these goals by connecting songwriters with musicians and providing artist advances.
“I’m excited to roll out these tools that leverage Snafu’s music discovery algorithms to help undiscovered talent make an impact in the music industry, and get compensated fairly in the process.”Music Business Worldwide
