AI music generator Suno still faces copyright lawsuits, raises another $400 million

Suno, the AI-powered music generation company, announced on Wednesday that it has raised a sum $400 million Series D roundThe company’s value is estimated at $5.4 billion. It was just About seven months ago Suno raised it at a valuation of $2.45 billion, confirming that investors are confident in the company’s future despite the lawsuits it faces.

This legal problem is not simple. As did Sonu herself I confessThe company trains its AI on copyrighted songs. The company argues that this is permissible under fair use — a legal principle that allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission, but one that is very specific and can vary widely from case to case. Copyright holders such as Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony, and German music collecting organization GEMA have continued to take legal action against Suno, though. Warner Music Group (WMG) reached a licensing agreement with the company last November.

When Sony and UMG initially sued Suno in 2024, the companies claimed that Suno had copied 560 of their copyrighted works. This number has since grown significantly. Last month, the record companies amended their complaint to claim the matter was over 61,000 other songs They were used to train artificial intelligence without permission.

None of that seems to slow Sonu’s growth. It’s still hovering around the top of the App Store music charts, and at the time it was raising its Series C round, users were generating more than 7 million songs on Suno every day, according to a pitch deck obtained by Bulletin board.

Bond Capital led the Series D round, along with IVP, Forerunner, Union Square Ventures, Alkeon, and Quiet. Existing investors Matrix, Lightspeed, Menlo Ventures and Schroders Capital also contributed. Sono says he is “thrilled to share some of the best artists, producers, songwriters and people from all over the music industry,” without revealing any names.

The omission is notable. Endorsing established artists would go a long way toward defusing the narrative that the music industry is uniformly opposed to what Sono is building.