What Splice’s Deal Signals Next

April 29, 2025

Hi friends,

Splice just signed an exciting acquisition deal: $50 million for London-based Spitfire Audio, the gold-standard sample library behind Moonlight, Radiohead, and a host of AAA video-game scores.

Now led by CEO Kakul Srivastava, Splice was founded in 2013 by Steve Martocci and Matt Aimonetti as a “GitHub for music” and has since grown into the leading marketplace for royalty-free samples, plug-ins, and AI-assisted creation tools.

Why it matters

  • From 20 people to 600k subscribers. When Flybridge joined the 2016 Series A, Steve Martocci’s team was convincing producers to pay $7/mo for royalty-free loops. Nine years later, Splice is profitable. Today, they’re clearing >$100 million ARR.

  • From bedroom to Billboard. Splice loops power chart-topping songs. The $13 guitar riff in Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, the drums in Doja Cat’s Say So, and textures on Playboi Carti’s OPM Babi. The flywheel is working. 

  • AI loves great ingredients. Splice’s new “hum-to-search” and mood filters work best when the source audio is pristine. Spitfire drops thousands of Abbey Road-level strings and Hans Zimmer drums into the catalog. Those are sounds no bedroom producer can record alone.

  • Augmented, not automated. Prompt-based “make me a Drake track” toys are a lot of fun. But professional artists need more knobs to twist and fine tune. By pairing human-recorded content with AI recommendations, Splice keeps creators in control.

Takeaways

  1. Founder-market fit compounds. Steve was a huge fan of live music communities, following bands like Phish on tour and even building GroupMe so fans could connect.

  2. Data is the moat. Every download sharpens the recommendation engine. That reduces churn and cuts CAC.

  3. Ride the wave, then buy the surf shop. AI-driven creativity is expanding the music-maker TAM. Targeted roll-ups like Spitfire speed up product velocity.

As an investor, I’m curious which other “picks-and-shovels” a profitable, growth-stage player in a $100 billion creator economy snaps up next. If you’re a founder, the takeaways are 1) focus on a rabid niche, 2) let community data accrue, and 3) pull the M&A trigger when the math says so.

Until next time,

— Jesse

P.S. New York Tech Week is right around the corner (June 2-8). I’ll share the full slate of panels I’m hosting, speaking at, or attending soon. In the meantime, get on the list for one of my favorites:

🍩 Bytes & Bites: Early-Stage B2B Kickoff Breakfast (Tuesday, June 3 at 8:30 a.m.)

A dozen NYC seed investors (including Flybridge) are gathering founders for coffee and rapid-fire networking to kick off #NYTechWeek. Space is limited. RSVP here to snag a spot. See you there!