GasLab raises $1M
GasLab, a GenAI music platform created by DJ and producer Reinier Zonneveld, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Eric Demuth, co-founder and executive chairman of Bitpanda, and Bas Beerens, founder of WeTransfer.
Other European entrepreneurs also participated in the round. GasLab aims to ensure that artists whose music contributes to AI-generated tracks are recognised, credited and able to share in the value created.
GasLab provides the music industry with an end-to-end system for AI music. Artists and labels that allow their music to be used in training the model will be able to see exactly how their work contributed to each generated track and will be paid for it.
Zonneveld trained as a classical pianist from the age of three before teaching himself electronic production. He launched the Filth on Acid label in 2017, holds the world record for the longest electronic music live set, and has been ranked among the world’s top 30 DJs over the past five years.
Zonneveld and his long-term friend and business partner Cas Luuring began working with machine learning eight years ago, which led to the creation of Zonneveld’s own AI model, R2, trained on his own catalogue and performed back-to-back at festivals. Zonneveld, Luuring and former VC partner and Uber general manager Thijs Emondts form the core team behind the company.
The investment will support GasLab through its next phase on the path to becoming the leading global GenAI platform for music that is transparent and fairly attributed. The company also aims to develop its attribution engine for use by other GenAI platforms.
“My academic background in economics and mathematics fuelled a curiosity for what algorithms could bring to music. But first and foremost I am a musician and I believe it must always pay to be an artist. The current state of generative AI has a major flaw: It takes from artists but gives nothing back. This is a problem that has to be solved if we want there to be any semblance of a creative industry in the future. So, I set out to solve it. And that’s how we came up with GasLab.”
