Musicube raises six-figure sum

The Hamburg-based company has developed software that uses AI to search through music. Musicube has now been able to convince investors, including Wacken co-founder Holger Hübner.

The Hamburg-based start-up Musicube has raised a six-figure sum. The money comes from the Next Media Accelerator (NMA) and Holger Hübner, co-founder of the Wacken Open Air music festival.

"Today's music listeners are stuck in filter bubbles and almost 90 percent of music is therefore hardly ever listened to," says co-founder David Hoga, explaining the background to his start-up. Musicube uses AI to search music using 500 keywords in its database, which contains 44 million songs. The metadata comes from publishers and music labels; customers include companies such as Sony Music Germany and Budde Music Publishing. "We can help companies sort through complex data to make better decisions, create richer services and extend listening time," says Hoga about the benefits for his customers.

The start-up has employees from the fields of musicology and data analysis working together on Musicube's semantic music search. This involves filtering according to characteristics such as moods, music genres and tempo. The software is made available to companies via API interfaces and web widgets.

"musicube solves the problem of a lack of discoverability and diversity in music," says new investor Hübner. "In the end, it's the artists and fans who benefit the most. The results are already impressive," he says, pleased with the start-up's work.