(l to r) Lemonaide co-founders Anirudh Mani and Michael Jacob as well as BeatStars founder Ibrahim Batshon and COO Sean Gorman. Photo Credit: BeatStars
New day, new AI music company acquisitions: Splice has scooped up Kits AI, and 30 months after partnering with Lemonaide AI, BeatStars has purchased the melody generator outright.
Eyeing “ethical AI” expansions, both buyers disclosed the deals (but not the financials thereof) in releases that were emailed to DMN. Beginning with Splice, the self-described “leading music creation platform” emphasized the “fully licensed” nature of the data behind Kits AI’s offerings.
Machine-powered soundalike vocals (including custom digital voices) are the most widely known of those offerings. However, Kits also deals in AI instruments, mastering, stem separation, text-to-speech tools, and much more, according to its website.
Now, all these commercially cleared features are presumably set to integrate into Splice, which, with its own collection of royalty-free samples and (as of 2025’s final quarter) virtual instruments, has been spearheading AI expansions for a while.
Last year, this focus fueled the reportedly $50 million buyout of Spitfire Audio and, to close out 2025, a Universal Music licensing and content collaboration pact.
“It was important to us to find a team that shared Splice’s creator-first values, and that was equally committed to the responsible development of AI, including artist compensation,” Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava said of the Kits AI play.
“Kits AI’s ML research has delivered multiple frontier models, including zero-shot voice cloning (IVC) and generative vocals (KGV1.0), both trained on fully-licensed data. I’m excited to work with this visionary team to build new ways for our customers to explore ideas, shape melodies, and experiment with sound,” the former Adobe exec concluded.
As for BeatStars, the increasingly AI-geared music marketplace inked an “ethically sourced” partnership agreement with Lemonaide back in July 2023.
To date, the companies have coordinated on a number of consent-based and attribution-focused producer models, including for Lex Luger, Kato on the Track, and Mantra, to name a few.
Behind the scenes, the tie-up has evidently proven successful. With today’s deal – the buyer declined to divulge price-tag particulars – “the Lemonaide team will fully join BeatStars.” This includes the addition of Lemonaide co-founders Michael Jacob (as CTO) and Anirudh Mani (chief science officer).
“With BeatStars,” Mani added, “we have the opportunity to push the frontier of AI in an ethical way. Our rights-first approach to generative AI proves innovation and ownership can move forward together.”
All told, 2026 has already delivered a fairly long list of AI funding rounds, partnerships, purchases, and product launches – not to mention a continued shift towards opt-in models.
On the other hand, AI is also at the center of additional training-related lawsuits, responsible for the ongoing avalanche of slop on DSPs, and to blame for falsely labeling a musician a sex offender.
