Guy Oseary and Ashton Kutcher‘s venture capital firm, Sound Ventures, said Monday (May 1) it has raised $240 million for a fund dedicated to investing in artificial intelligence companies.
The Sound Ventures AI Fund’s first investments include stakes in OpenAI — the lab behind ChatGPT that was co-founded by Elon Musk — as well as the generative AI startup, Anthropic, and Stability, which created the AI-powered Stable Diffusion image generator.
Known for its investments in Uber, Airbnb and GitLab, Sound Ventures and its entertainment-focused general partners are entering a heated debate about AI’s potential applications, throwing significant financial support behind companies that are pushing the technology forward.
Within the music industry, Universal Music Group, supported by organizations like the NMPA, has railed against the use of AI in music — whether to create original functional music or fake Drake tracks.
In support of AI, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said last week that he’s optimistic the technology could fuel the creation of more music, which he says could also benefit his company’s bottom line. Artists have also entered the debate, with Drake complaining on social media about the many attempts to mimic his voice, while the experimental Canadian artist Grimes launched an A.I. vocal project this week while encouraging fans to create “chaos.”
Oseary, who manages Madonna and U2, said Sound Ventures expects AI to have a significant impact on entertainment and wants to “responsibly support” that.
“We anticipate that AI is going to play an impactful role in everything we do — including entertainment, an industry we know well,” Oseary said in a statement. “The companies we are backing will be at the forefront of this powerful innovation.”
Led by Oseary, Kutcher and Effie Epstein, Sound Ventures manages roughly $1 billion in assets and has been investing in artificial intelligence for roughly a decade.
“We believe this is potentially the most significant technology we will experience since the advent of the internet,” Kutcher said in a statement. “[These] companies are defining the category, and, in our view, they have the power to transform businesses and everyday life. That is a conversation we want to be in.”
