Techno star's GasLab raises $1M to make AI music pay artists
What's the deal? GasLabDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a generative AI music platform founded by Dutch DJ and producer Reinier Zonneveld, has raised roughly $1 million in pre-seed funding. Backers include Eric DemuthDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, co-founder and executive chairman of Bitpanda, and Bas Beerens, founder of WeTransfer, alongside other European entrepreneurs.
What's the endgame? GasLab wants to become the leading global genAI platform for music that is transparent and fairly attributed. Artists and labels who let their work train its model can see exactly how it shaped each generated track — and get paid for it.
What's the product? The platform offers an end-to-end system for AI music, built on licensed training data and full attribution back to the original musicians. Its proprietary attribution engine shows creators which tracks and artists shaped each song, and could eventually serve other genAI platforms too. Zonneveld is inviting users to join a guest list for private testing ahead of a public launch.
Who's behind it? Zonneveld ranks 21st in 2026's DJ Mag global top 100 and founded the Filth on AcidDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → label in 2017. He began working with machine learning eight years ago with business partner Cas Luuring, building his own AI model, R2, trained on his own catalogue. Former VC partner and Uber general manager Thijs Emondts completes the core team.
Why now? Generative AI can produce a finished track in seconds, but most tools do not show which music influenced the result or give those artists a stake in the value created. "The current state of generative AI has a major flaw: It takes from artists but gives nothing back," Zonneveld said.
The signal: Attribution and compensation have become defining questions in music's relationship with AI. GasLab is betting that a transparent, pay-the-artist model — rather than scraping without credit — is the commercially and legally durable way to build AI music tools.
Read more: recordoftheday.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
