The biggest music industry deals 2026 so far

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We’re half way through the year so it’s time to check in on the biggest music industry deals of the last six months.

It’s been a monster year already.

The “fourth major” rose from the merger of BMG and Concord. Distrokid changed hands, and billions of dollars were raised to invest in music catalog.

Meanwhile, Suno and ElevenLabs continued to attract enormous venture capital to accelerate their AI music models.

Let’s go through it all.

Note: all our deal tracking is manual. There may be omissions, please feel free to reply or email me if we missed something.

This is probably the biggest year I can remember in terms of massive acquisitions, including (maybe) the biggest music deal in history when Concord merged with BMG.

The music distribution landscape was severely shaken up. Downtown was acquired by Universal, Revelator was bought by Warner Music, and Distrokid (with 30-40% of the world’s new music uploads) changed hands to CVC Capital Partners.

• Concord BMG merger $7bn - The biggest music deal of the year (maybe ever, depending on some valuations) creating what many called the “fourth major.”

• Distrokid ~$2bn - Private equity company CVC Capital acquired a majority stake in Distrokid, the world’s biggest self-serve distribution platform. The deal was rumoured to be valued at $2bn.

• Kobalt $1.5bn - Kobalt is one of the world’s biggest independent publishers. It sold to Primary Wave in March.

• Downtown Music $775m - Downtown Music is home to distribution platforms CD Baby and FUGA. It sold to Universal Music Group at the beginning of the year.

• Curve Royalty Systems (undisclosed) - As part of the Downtown Music / UMG acquisition, regulators forced the divestment of Curve Royalty Systems over fears of creating a monopoly. It was later acquired by Merlin and Jamen Capital in a bid to keep Curve independent.

• Revelator (undisclosed) - Revelator is a white-label distributor which works with hundreds of independent record labels and distribution platforms. It was acquired by Warner Music Group.

The land-grab for music catalog continues this year. The major labels are partnering with sovereign wealth funds, and private equity is committing billions of dollars to “music as an asset class.”

• Primary Wave $2.23b - Primary Wave has already scooped up $700m worth of music publishing catalog including Notorious B.I.G. and Village People. This year they raised a fourth fund at $2.23b, making it the largest dedicated music royalties fundraise in history.

• Sony and GIC $2b - Sony Music Group teamed up with GIC (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund) to create a music catalog joint venture. They plan to commit $2-3bn towards acquiring legacy music catalog.

• Shamrock Capital $800m - This is not purely a music fund, but Shamrock raised $800m to invest in rights across music, film and TV. They previously acquired music rights from Taylor Swift, Dr. Dre and Calvin Harris.

• Create Music $450m - After previously buying rights from Deadmau5 and acquiring record labels like Monstercat, Create Music has raised a further $450m in equity and debt funding this year.

• Duetti $200m - Duetti has set out to capture the independent catalog market. It raised $200m in January, taking its total to $635m.

• Atlantic Screen Group $30m - Dedicated to acquiring film scores and TV music, ASG raised $30m in January this year.

A smaller category this year, we include any investment firms that raised money specifically to deploy into music companies.

• Jamen Capital $200m - Led by Matt Spetzler, Jamen Capital raised $200m at the start of the year to invest specifically in the independent music sector.

• Bridgepoint + Goldstate Music [undisclosed] - Two private equity companies teamed up to invest in music this year. Although terms are undisclosed, the firms have previously raised $7.5 billion and $500 million respectively.

Music tech financing is still heavily tilted towards AI companies, both AI generation and AI detection/attribution. Let’s start with the bigger rounds, from Series A onwards and large private equity deals.

• ElevenLabs $500m - ElevenLabs raised a Series D at $500m in February, then later launched its V2 AI music model and ramped up its presence across the music sector.

• Suno $400m - Despite ongoing legal battles and almost no licensing agreements with the music industry, Suno secured a $400m Series D at a $5.4 billion valuation.

• Too Lost ~$100m+ - One of the fastest-growing new music distributors, Too Lost tapped the private equity markets to secure a “nine-figure” investment for artist advances, catalog acquisitions and technology build-out.

• Mirelo $41m - Mirelo is an AI audio and sound-effects generator for film and video content. It raised $41m at the very end of 2025.

• Stationhead [undisclosed] - The social music streaming app received a strategic investment from Universal Music Group this year. It comes after Stationhead previously raised a $12 million Series A.

• Breakaway $30m - The EDM and pop-music festival brand raised a $30m Series B to expand internationally.

• Hook $10m - AI remix and mashup app Hook raised $10m Series A.

• GRAI $9m - AI remix and interactive music app raised $9 million in April.

• MozartAI $7m - London based AI music startup raised $1m at the start of the year, quickly followed by a follow on $6m after hitting 100,000 users.

• SURF Music $6m - Japanese platform for connecting artists to labels, publishers, and sync opportunities.

• Mogul $5m - Mogul helps artists and their teams identify and collect missing royalties. It raised $5m this year after tracking more than $1.5 billion in royalties.

• MusicalAI $4.5m - MusicalAI is developing AI attribution technology, raising $4.5 million at the start of the year.

• SWSH $4m - A superfan app for sharing UGC content around live events raised $4m in June.

If you found this useful, please do forward it to your colleagues or share with your friends. If you have questions or thoughts, reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email at benjamin@stvdio.io. See you next week with another music industry report.