SOUNDRAW, the viral AI-powered beat and track generator, is announcing new funding from music industry experts and investors. Led by Carbide Ventures, other investors include mint VC, Ceres, iSGS, SMBC Venture Capital, Deepcore, and Kazuomi Kaneto, as well as Paul Rosenberg, CEO of Goliath Artists, Inc./President of Shady Records.

SOUNDRAW has quietly gained a following of 557K creators. In a few clicks, SOUNDRAW lets artists and creators conjure up high-quality beats and tracks that they can then play around with to get the perfect soundtrack or instrumental. SOUNDRAW is the songwriting partner every vocalist dreams of, the collaborator every creator wishes they had, composing the right track for the vibe. Creators choose their desired genre, mood, and length (up to 5 minutes)–and SOUNDRAW generates the rest. From there, the platform lets them customize the generated music intuitively. They can make an intro shorter, take out some bars, or change the energy of a section to get it right where they need it to be, for example.

“I started SOUNDRAW to make music really open and fun and easy for anyone to create and use, no matter what their technical ability, and we’ve succeeded,” SOUNDRAW founder and CEO Daigo Kusunoki explains. “We can’t wait to put more tools into more hands, so that everyone can make music.”

Founded by Daigo Kusunoki, a Japanese championship-winning dancer with a successful music tech startup behind him, SOUNDRAW is designed to unlock the music creativity of those new to songwriting and those who make music part of bigger projects (such as crazy AI-generated pizza ads). Kusunoki knows how to make a viral, accessible product: His previous company, a wearable music device called Soundmoovz, sold nearly half a million units in just 18 months.  

That same viral quality resounds in SOUNDRAW. SOUNDRAW has been strongly associated with Hip Hop and genres such as Drill, Phonk, and Afrobeats, but an unusual event led to an abrupt spike in users in 2023: the viral Pepperoni Hug Spot commercial. The parody ad–created entirely by AI models prompted to generate the script, voiceover, visuals, and music for a fictitious pizza restaurant–featured background music created with SOUNDRAW.

“Pepperoni Hug Spot–while a hilarious parody–also served as a great example of how SOUNDRAW supports creative people who don’t think of themselves as musicians or producers,” says Kusunoki. “We help them make something amazing. And we are currently onboarding artists who can use Soundraw to create backing tracks for their music, too, with some exciting partnerships on the horizon.”

Holding the utmost respect for creatives, SOUNDRAW emphasizes its worry-free and royalty-free licensing system. SOUNDRAW’s license for creators lasts forever, allowing them to post and monetize videos on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram without risking copyright strikes. Along with its creator-facing web app, SOUNDRAW has a B2B product, an API ready to be incorporated into other innovative music or creativity platforms, letting its generation engine work its magic right where creators make cool things. 

“We value artists and their craft and understand the importance of legal rights and ownership when it comes to AI-generated music,” says Kusunoki. “We want to assure our users that all the music generated through our platform is created using proprietary algorithms and data sets that have been created in-house by our music producers.”