The Deals: GRAI Acquires Social Music Platform Hangout; DICE Owner Fever Raises $250M

AI music company GRAI closed an acquisition of the social music platform Hangout, which was developed by the creators of Turntable.fm. With the deal, GRAI plans to build an AI-powered social streaming service combining “Hangout’s deep insights into social listening behavior with GRAI’s tech and consumer product vision.”

Hangout allows users to start listening rooms and play music for their guests. It launched in November 2024 with a library of more than 100 million songs via licensing deals with the three majors and indie rights group Merlin.

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“I grew up backstage at an opera house where my grandfather sang, so music has always meant people to me,” said Andrei Avsievich, co-founder and president of GRAI, in a statement. “Joseph and his team built a product that showed how deeply people want to gather around music and do more with it than press play. We see it exactly the same way. The future of streaming is social and co-creative. It just needed two things: the demand and the technology. With today’s AI, it now has both.”

“I built Hangout to fix what’s broken in online spaces,” added Hangout founder Joseph Perla. “We wanted to recreate that feeling of sitting on a bedroom floor passing around records, turning music back into a collective experience. Integrating our work into GRAI is how we keep that core belief in human connection moving forward.”

GRAI was founded in 2025 by the team behind AI video-editing app Vochi, which was later acquired by Pinterest. — Chris Eggertsen

Scroll down for more recent music industry deals.

• Fever Raises $250M in Round Led by EQT

  Live entertainment tech company Fever, the owner of U.K. ticketing platform DICE, announced a $250 million primary equity financing round led by EQT, with Point72 Private Investments and Baillie Gifford also participating. Co-founded by Francisco Hein, Ignacio Bachiller and Alexandre Pérez, Fever will use the money to expand its geographic footprint and “deepen its presence across all major entertainment categories,” according to a press release. It will additionally accelerate its investment in technology and tools for partners including venues, promoters and artists. — Chris Eggertsen

• Dan Loeb’s Third Point Increases Live Nation Stake

  Dan Loeb‘s hedge fund Third Point increased its stake in Live Nation by 144% in the second quarter, to around 1.14 million shares. That’s up from 465,000 in the first quarter of this year. — Chris Eggertsen

• MNRK Music Group Acquires Black Label Society’s Complete Catalog

  

  MNRK Music Group acquired the complete recorded catalog of Zakk Wylde‘s band Black Label Society. The catalog includes 11 of the band’s studio albums, including Stronger Than Death, Order of the Black, 1919 Eternal and The Blessed Hellride, along with Wylde’s solo recordings.

  The deal marks the next stage in a long-running partnership between MNRK and Wylde. The deal will empower MNRK to create additional opportunities around reissues, legacy campaigns and more while extending the reach of Wylde and Black Label Society’s music across various formats. Wylde will remain involved in shaping those campaigns.

  Over its nearly three-decade career, Black Label Society charted 14 titles on the Billboard 200, including two top five entries: 2010’s Order of the Black and 2014’s Catacombs of the Black Vatican. — Chris Eggertsen

• SoundExchange and Music Nation in the UAE Strike New Neighboring Rights Deal

  Neighboring rights organization SoundExchange and United Arab Emirates (UAE) music rights management body Music Nation Copyrights Management signed a reciprocal agreement to strengthen cross-border neighboring rights administration, helping to create new revenue streams for rights holders in the U.S. and the UAE. SoundExchange previously partnered with Music Nation to provide tech, data and expertise around neighboring rights administration in the UAE. — Chris Eggertsen

• AEG Presents and Europe’s Greenhouse Talent Announce Partnership

  AEG Presents and Greenhouse Talent, one of Europe’s leading independent concert promoters, formed an official partnership. The investment formalizes a longstanding relationship between the companies and brings Greenhouse into AEG Presents’ expanding European network of promoters. Greenhouse will continue to operate from Ghent, Belgium, and Breda, Netherlands, under its existing leadership, “retaining the entrepreneurial identity, local expertise and artist relationships that have made it a leading force in Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg),” the companies said in a joint release. 

  Founded by Pascal Van De Velde in 2005, Greenhouse Talent has become the largest independent concert promoter in Benelux, according to the release, promoting nearly 1,500 events annually featuring international artists across music, live entertainment and comedy. Additionally, Greenhouse produces Belgium’s Gent Jazz festival and the Netherlands Spoorpark LIVE, and is the lead promoter and producer of the Dutch edition of Country to Country, which has grown into one of the region’s largest country music festivals. — Taylor Mims

• Concert Stuff Group & Major Tom Touring/Colonel Tom Touring Acquires 68 Acres in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.

  Concert Stuff Group and Major Tom Touring/Colonel Tom Touring acquired 68 acres in Mt. Juliet, Tenn. The deal was facilitated by Colliers, with the buyers represented by Jerry Miele, Will Smith, Spencer Smith, Bill Buckley and Mitch Hendricks.

  “This site in Mt. Juliet gives us exactly the kind of long-term position we’ve been targeting in Middle Tennessee,” Jim Brammer, CEO of Concert Stuff Group, said in a statement. “Collaborating with Lars at Major Tom Touring / Colonel Tom Touring on this acquisition strengthens our footprint in one of the fastest-growing markets in the nation, and we’re grateful to the Colliers team for once again guiding us through a smooth transaction. We’re looking forward to putting this property to work as part of our broader growth strategy in Tennessee.” — Ariel King

• Phase Entertainment Group Signs Distribution Deal With ADA Canada/Warner Music Canada

  Phase Entertainment Group signed a music distribution partnership with ADA Canada/Warner Music Canada. Founded by Jeff Ojeda, Phase encompasses artist management, agency representation and synch licensing. Its roster includes Kyle McKearney, Royal Tusk and Alex Hughes. The first release under the deal will be McKearney’s new track “Outcast,” which will be available on Oct. 23. Royal Tusk also has a new album in the works, while Hughes released her debut EP in the spring. — Chris Eggertsen

• A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya Raises $5.5M Seed Round

  A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya, a company founded by former Spotify innovation head Máuhan M. Zonoozy that releases apps allowing users to experiment with sounds and vocals, raised a $5.5 million seed round from investors including SV Angel, BoxGroup, Liquid 2 Ventures, Quiet Capital, Gold House, Common Metal, Systemic Ventures, Remarkable Ventures, Breakers, Mantis Venture Capital, Collaborative Fund and former Spotify chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff, who also joined the company as an advisor. The news was first reported by TechCrunch. — Chris Eggertsen

• Artist Avatar Startup Unit1 Studio Raises $20M

  U.K.-based music tech startup Unit1 Studio, a company founded by Barney Wragg that’s aiming to recreate classic concerts using digital avatars of famous musicians, raised $20 million in funding from investors including Balderton Capital via its partner Daniel Waterhouse. The news was first reported by The Guardian. — Chris Eggertsen