Song Sleuth
Song Sleuth is an AI/ML platform that detects user-generated music content on YouTube to help publishers, labels, and collecting societies claim royalties from live performances and unlicensed content missed by traditional detection systems.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersDublin, Ireland
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Song Sleuth does
Song Sleuth is an AI/ML-powered music technology company that helps rights holders identify and claim royalties from user-generated content (UGC) on platforms such as YouTube. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, the company was acquired by Epidemic Sound in April 2025 and now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The platform comprises three integrated products: UGSeeker, a proprietary AI/ML engine that scans social platforms to surface live music recordings and unlicensed content missed by conventional audio fingerprinting, with human moderation prior to monetization claims; LiveLink, which identifies live-music UGC in near real time using a global calendar of thousands of monitored events; and Insights, an analytics tool that mines a proprietary database of millions of user-uploaded assets for revenue, marketing, and licensing opportunities. Reported 2024 operating scale includes 5.5M+ songs ingested from partners, 209M+ UGC videos discovered, 60M+ videos prioritized for analysis, and 1B monthly views generated from claimed content, with 400,000 videos manually claimed to date.
The company sells exclusively B2B to music publishers, labels, collecting societies, and independent rights-management organizations, with a direct enterprise sales motion and custom multi-year contracts. Named customers include Warner Chappell Music, Audiam, Regalías Digitales, Position Music, and ICE Services (the latter via a 12-month commercial trial). Pricing is contact-based and undisclosed. Song Sleuth maintains offices in Dublin, Lisbon, Chicago, and London and is led by CEO Jordan Gross, CTO Ibrahim Maali (ex-Groupon algorithmic personalization), and CCO Amanda Schupf (ex-Songtradr, INgrooves, Imagem/Concord). The company was recognized as a Music Ally SI:X finalist in 2023 (Data, Analytics, and Tools category) and has raised approximately $2.5M in disclosed funding across 2021-2022.
Song Sleuth firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Song Sleuth
- Legal name
- Song Sleuth Limited
- Website
- https://songsleuth.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Song Sleuth is an AI/ML platform that detects user-generated music content on YouTube to help publishers, labels, and collecting societies claim royalties from live performances and unlicensed content missed by traditional detection systems.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Song Sleuth industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Music rights and royalty analytics software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Sound Recording Industries (5122)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Recorded Music Metadata, Fingerprinting & Anti-Piracy (CID/Content ID) (MPAIAAAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Music Recognition, Lyrics & Metadata Platforms (MPAIADAK), Content Identification & Matching (Fingerprinting, ID Resolution) (MPAHALAE)
Keywords
Where Song Sleuth is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Dublin
- HQ country
- Ireland
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices4 records
Markets served
Song Sleuth business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- UGC Detection and Royalty Claiming Services: Song Sleuth provides AI-powered detection services to music rights holders (publishers, labels, collecting societies) to identify and claim undiscovered royalties from user-generated content on platforms like YouTube. The company appears to operate on a service/retainer model with enterprise clients.
- Data Insights and Analytics: Insights product provides data analytics services to rights holders, informing revenue, marketing, and licensing opportunities. This may be bundled with core detection services or sold as additional analytics.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Other | Multi-year contract | Enterprise B2B service with custom pricing |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels5 records
Song Sleuth product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Song Sleuth builds an AI and machine learning platform that scans major social platforms such as YouTube to identify user-generated content containing live music recordings and other unlicensed music. Its UGSeeker, LiveLink, and Insights products help music rights holders — publishers, labels, collecting societies, and independent rights management organizations — discover and claim royalties on content that slips through traditional audio fingerprinting systems, with human moderators reviewing each flagged opportunity before monetization claims are submitted.
Product overview
Song Sleuth is a technology platform comprising three integrated products focused on solving the music industry's user-generated content (UGC) problem. The core offering consists of UGSeeker (AI/ML-powered royalty hunting platform), LiveLink (near real-time live music UGC identification), and Insights (data analytics tool). These products work together to provide a 360-degree service: UGSeeker discovers and claims undiscovered royalties from UGC, LiveLink monitors live events in near real time, and Insights provides granular data analysis for revenue, marketing, and licensing opportunities.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- UGSeeker AI and machine learning platform that scans major social platforms to find user-generated content of live music recordings and other unlicensed content. Uses a proprietary algorithm to identify potential royalty-bearing videos, with human moderators reviewing opportunities before monetization claims are submitted on behalf of rights owners.
- LiveLink Tool that identifies live music user-generated content in near real time on YouTube, enabling rights holders to claim and monetize content from virtually the moment it is uploaded. Operates against a global calendar of thousands of events, monitoring specific artists on behalf of clients.
- Insights Data analytics tool that unlocks opportunities by analyzing millions of user-uploaded assets from around the world, providing granular insights to inform new revenue, marketing, and licensing opportunities.
Quantifiable outcome
- 209+ million UGC videos discovered on YouTube in 2024 alone
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Song Sleuth
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Song Sleuth technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability6 records
Feature3 records
Song Sleuth partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.
- Regalías DigitalescorePartnership with Regalías Digitales, a Top 10 indie music publisher on YouTube with 1,500 artists, songwriters and publishers. Song Sleuth deploys UGSeeker across the entire catalog to identify undiscovered UGC for their Latin, Hip-Hop, Rock, Reggae and Caribbean client roster.
- ICE Servicesmajor12-month commercial trial with ICE Services, the world's first integrated music copyright, licensing and processing hub. Trial to explore returns from UGC identification services for ICE Core Society and Publisher partners, helping identify additional works not currently included in platforms' usage reporting.
- Warner Chappell MusiccoreMajor partnership with Warner Chappell Music, one of the world's leading music publishers. Warner Chappell utilizes Song Sleuth's UGSeeker platform to identify and claim undiscovered UGC royalties across their catalog of songs and compositions.
- AudiammajorPartnership with Audiam, a music publishing and royalty collection company, using Song Sleuth's technology to identify and claim undiscovered UGC royalties.
- Position MusicmajorPartnership with Position Music, a music publisher client leveraging Song Sleuth's UGC detection and claiming services.
- Regalías DigitalesmajorResearch and analytics partnership with Regalías Digitales analyzing fan video UGC data, including case studies like The Warning's UGC amplification analysis demonstrating 62% of total video views came from UGC.
Scale indicators8 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Song Sleuth competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- YouTube Content ID: The platform-native fingerprinting and claiming system operated by YouTube/Google. It is the dominant incumbent against which Song Sleuth competes, setting baseline detection coverage that Song Sleuth positions itself as exceeding.
- Downtown Music (formerly FUGA): Music publishing administration, distribution, and rights management platform serving indie labels and publishers with catalogue tracking and royalty tooling. Adjacent incumbent that bundles distribution and rights services where UGC claiming is an add-on workflow similar to Song Sleuth's.
- Gracenote (Nielsen): Large-scale music and video metadata, identification, and content recognition business owned by Nielsen. Offers broader industry metadata and fingerprinting capabilities across music, TV, and sport as part of a much wider portfolio, overlapping with Song Sleuth on music identification.
Emerging players
- ACRCloud: Automatic content recognition (ACR) provider offering audio fingerprinting and broadcast/UGC monitoring APIs. Directly comparable technology stack to UGSeeker/LiveLink, focused on developer/API distribution into rights-holder and monitoring use cases.
Others
- Audiam: Music publishing and royalty collection company that has been both customer and adjacent technology partner to Song Sleuth (deploys UGSeeker against its catalog). Comparable as a rights-administration intermediary, though operating upstream in the publishing/royalty stack.
- Music Reports: Music rights administration and royalty processing platform serving publishers, labels, and digital services with usage identification and payment processing. Comparable as infrastructure-layer rights and royalty tooling that could integrate or compete with Song Sleuth's detection outputs.
Direct peers
- Audible Magic: Long-established audio and video fingerprinting vendor providing content identification for music rights holders, streaming platforms, and UGC sites. Directly comparable as a competing third-party detection layer for music publishers and platforms.
- BMAT: Music identification and audio fingerprinting company serving broadcasters, collecting societies, and rights holders with matching and royalty attribution. Directly comparable as a music-vertical content ID provider competing for similar publisher and society customers.
- Pex: AI-based content identification platform offering audio and video fingerprinting as well as UGC and infringement detection for rights holders. Directly comparable as a technology-first content ID and royalty-recovery competitor in the music space.
- Vobile Group: Content ID and fingerprinting company serving film, TV, and music rights holders with automated detection and monetization tooling. Directly comparable on the underlying fingerprinting/identification technology and rights-holder customer base.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Song Sleuth social profiles
Digital presenceSong Sleuth financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Song Sleuth leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
Song Sleuth funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Song Sleuth M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Song Sleuth
What does Song Sleuth do?
Song Sleuth builds an AI and machine learning platform that scans major social platforms such as YouTube to identify user-generated content containing live music recordings and other unlicensed music. Its UGSeeker, LiveLink, and Insights products help music rights holders — publishers, labels, collecting societies, and independent rights management organizations — discover and claim royalties on content that slips through traditional audio fingerprinting systems, with human moderators reviewing each flagged opportunity before monetization claims are submitted.
Is Song Sleuth a public or private company?
Song Sleuth is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently acquired.
When was Song Sleuth founded?
Song Sleuth was founded in 2021. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Song Sleuth based?
Song Sleuth is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, in the Europe region.
How does Song Sleuth make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. UGC Detection and Royalty Claiming Services are the primary driver. The others are data Insights and Analytics.
Who are Song Sleuth's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are YouTube Content ID, Downtown Music (formerly FUGA) and Gracenote (Nielsen). ACRCloud is listed as an emerging player. Others are Audiam and Music Reports. Direct peers are Audible Magic, BMAT, Pex and Vobile Group.
Does Song Sleuth have an API?
No public API is recorded for Song Sleuth.
What industry is Song Sleuth in?
Song Sleuth's product category is Music rights and royalty analytics software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAIAAAJ, Recorded Music Metadata, Fingerprinting & Anti-Piracy (CID/Content ID), with a secondary code of MPAIADAK, Music Recognition, Lyrics & Metadata Platforms. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7370.