Photo Credit: Songkick
After acquiring Songkick from Warner Music Group in November, Suno plans to use the platform’s juicy user data tranche to reimagine concert discovery with AI.
AI startup Suno shook hands with Warner Music Group back in November, a “landmark” licensing deal between a music company and an artificial intelligence company. Accordingly, Suno now has formal control of concert discovery service Songkick—and all the user data that comes with it.
Now, after months of relatively little noise, the company is rolling up its sleeves on this concert gem.
Seeming in the middle of the night, Suno has posted a job listing for a General Manager of Songkick, described as “a massive untapped opportunity to reimagine what live music discovery experiences look like when powered by AI.”
Emails have also been blasted to Songkick users informing them that personal data on the platform would be transferred to Suno. That includes account details, artist and location preferences, and related service information like alert settings. Notably, this presumably also includes information aggregated through years of Songkick’s important Spotify integration.
The listing says the position involves developing and executing “an integration roadmap that connects Songkick’s live music graph with Suno’s artist and creation ecosystem.” The new hire will also “champion a vision for what it means to move a fan from creating music on Suno to driving live experiences on Songkick.” This role will report to Suno Chief Music Officer Paul Sinclair, a former Atlantic Records General Manager and EVP, who joined Suno last summer.
As first reported by Digital Music News, Suno acquired Songkick from Warner Music back in November as part of the two entities’ major settlement and licensing deal. At the time, Suno’s interest in a concert discovery app raised a few eyebrows, but it was arguably the least interesting part of the arrangement.
Meanwhile, Robert Kyncl’s WMG remains the lone mega-licensor of Suno.
According to Financial Times, discussions with rival major labels Universal Music Group or Sony Music Entertainment have made significant progress: “We have ongoing engagement, but there is no path forward with the current proposal,” said one major label source with knowledge of the negotiations.
In February, Suno reported that it had reached 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue. That follows a $250 million Series C round in November at a $2.45 billion valuation.
