GasLab, the generative artificial intelligence (AI) music platform created by techno DJ and producer Reinier Zonneveld, has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding. The company says its technology attributes generated music to contributing musicians and provides a basis for paying them.
GasLab, short for Generative AI Solutions Lab, says its training data is fully licensed and every generated song carries attribution to the original musicians.
Funding and revenue sharing
The investors include European entrepreneurs, among them:
- Eric Demuth, co-founder and executive chairman of Bitpanda.
- Bas Beerens, founder of WeTransfer and a serial entrepreneur.
The funding will support further development of the platform and its attribution engine, which could also be used by other generative AI platforms.
GasLab uses a system called the Digital Notary to underpin revenue sharing with contributing artists and rights holders.
When subscriptions or releases generate income, its records provide the basis for allocating revenue to contributors whose music informed each generated output.
The team behind GasLab
Zonneveld began studying classical piano at three and later taught himself electronic music production. He founded Filth on Acid in 2017.
He holds the world record for the longest electronic music live set and has ranked among the world’s top 30 DJs throughout the past five years.
Eight years ago, Zonneveld began exploring machine learning with longtime friend and business partner Cas Luuring. That work produced R2, an AI model trained on Zonneveld’s own catalogue.
Zonneveld performs back-to-back with R2 at festivals. He and Luuring form GasLab’s core team alongside Thijs Emondts, a former venture capital partner and Uber general manager.
“My academic background in economics and mathematics fueled a curiosity for what algorithms could bring to music,” said Zonneveld.
“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.”
Private testing and Amsterdam preview
GasLab plans private testing ahead of a public launch.
Zonneveld is scheduled to speak at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) on Thursday, October 22, and Friday, October 23. He will perform an eight-hour live set on Sunday, October 25.
During the conference, posters across Amsterdam will carry a QR code linking to a GasLab preview. Visitors will be able to generate a track from a prompt and see which participating artists are credited.
