Speculation about a monster funding round for AI-music firm Suno has been running rife in recent months, but yesterday the official announcement came: a $400m Series D round which Suno said valued the company at $5.4bn.
This means Suno has more than doubled its valuation in little over six months, as in November 2025 it raised $250m at a valuation of $2.45bn.
A parade of venture-capital firms are involved in the latest raise, led by Bond Capital. IVP, Forerunner, Union Square Ventures, Alkeon, Quiet, Matrix, Lightspeed, Menlo Ventures and Schroders Capital.
Suno’s announcement also made enigmatic mention of “participation from some of the best artists, producers, songwriters, and people from across the music industry”, but with no names – perhaps the reputational risk remains too high for many of those individuals.
While CEO Mikey Shulman talked up the “professional producers and songwriters” using Suno, his blog post also zeroed in on the recent ‘text-to-music’ trend that spiked the company’s app downloads.
“Family members are turning text threads, group chats, and inside jokes into songs. People are writing songs for birthdays, graduations, and even work events. Viral trends helped propel Suno to #1 in the App Store’s Music category in dozens of countries,” he wrote.
However, the post also looked forwards. “In the coming months, we’ll begin rolling out our first music model developed in partnership with the music industry,” wrote Shulman.
“We believe there’s a huge opportunity to create new experiences for fans while helping artists reach audiences, build community, and unlock new creative and economic possibilities.”
That begs an important question. Suno has signed a deal with Warner Music Group, but is still being sued by Universal Music Group and Sony Music. Does the $400m of new funding bring settlements and licensing deals with those majors (and Merlin plus other independents) any closer?
Unlike traditional streaming services, AI-music firms don’t *need* a full house of rightsholders to launch a new model. Suno could roll out its next version with just WMG involved. But clearly it would be preferable to have other rightsholders – for the optics of it all as well as for the quality and diversity of the dataset.
But remember, too, there’s an extra layer of work needed in that process. Suno can sign deals with labels and publishers, but then they will have to continue their efforts to persuade artists and songwriters to opt in to those deals.
That outreach is well underway already, but this is just a reminder that while Suno’s swelling coffers may smooth its path to settlements and deals, it will have less ability to affect the speed (and success) of the labels’ persuasion campaigns with musicians.
