Sean Parker is rebuilding Stability AI around music - Yahoo Finance

Sean Parker is rebuilding Stability AI around music PHILADELPHIA, PA - NOVEMBER 10: Entrepreneur Sean Parker speaks on stage at the Philly Fights Cancer: Round 4 at The Philadelphia Navy Yard on November 10, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images) | Image Credits:Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty Images Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder, has jumped back into the music industry, and he tells The Information that he's playing by the rules this time. (Asking for forgiveness rather than permission didn't work out so well last time around, he readily concedes.) Two years ago, he joined an $80 million rescue of Stability AI, the image-generator startup that nearly collapsed after overspending and internal turmoil led to founder Emad Mostaque's ouster. Now Parker and his longtime friend Prem Akkaraju, who became CEO, are taking the wraps off what they've been building. The big idea, Parker says, is to turn Stability into the go-to AI toolmaker for music professionals. Toward that end, in late August, the company announced $76 million in funding from, among others, Sony, Warner, and Universal, which also licensed their catalogs for training as part of the deal. Stability has since released three new audio models and AI music-editing software. The AI can generate whole instrumental tracks or short snippets from text prompts. Parker says an upcoming update will let users hum a melody or beatbox a drum pattern to steer it.