Udio’s product came together remarkably quickly after its founding last December by four former employees of Google’s AI-research wing, DeepMind — David Ding, Conor Durkan, Charlie Nash, Yaroslav Ganin, and Andrew Sanchez — along with Andrew Sanchez. They’re backed by a range of tech heavyweights, including a16z (a.k.a. Andreesen Horowitz) and Instagram co-founder and CTO Mike Krieger. “We were very well supported from the day we took investment,” says Sanchez. “So the technical co-founders were sort of able to hit the ground running because we could get that all going pretty quickly.”
There are some notable music names on Udio’s list of early investors as well, including Common, producer Tay Keith, industry vet Steve Stoute’s United Masters, and Will.i.am. In a press release, Will.i.am, who’s long been an evangelist for
AI’s musical possibilities, was effusive about the company’s product: “This is a brand-new Renaissance, and Udio is the tool for this era’s creativity,” said the artist, who was consulted during the development of the product. “With Udio you are able to pull songs into existence via AI and your imagination.”