UPDATED: Apple has completed its acquisition of Asaii, an A&R-based music-analytics startup, according to reports in Axios, MusicAlly and Music Business Worldwide, which cite an early investor in the company as well as unnamed sources. However, several hours after the reports were first published, a rep for Apple said the company has “confirmed no such acquisition.”
Asaii announced in September that it will shut down this month, leading to speculation that it was about to be fully acquired; if the reports are true, presumably it is in the process of being absorbed by Apple. The San Francisco-based firm allows users to “discover, track, and manage talent using machine learning,” and was a finalist in the Midemlab startups competition earlier this year.
Apple Music for Artists launched in beta earlier this year and it seems likely Asaii will be integrated into that service; its “Recommend” option could be used as part of playlist recommendations as well.
Despite Spotify and Apple Music’s insistence that they are not interested in becoming rights-holding entities — i.e. record labels — both companies are moving aggressively, if quietly, into direct licensing deals with artists. Asaii will likely play a role in that effort.
“As the first investors in Asaii, we are incredibly excited by their recent acquisition by Apple where they will have the opportunity to dramatically scale their impact and continue building out their vision for the future of the music industry,” Cameron Baradar, founder of The House, told Music Ally.