Splice Buys Kits AI Amid Growing Trend of AI Music Startup Acquisitions

Splice has acquired Kits AI, a startup that provides AI voice models for music makers. Founded in 2021, Kits AI has processed 80 million minutes of vocals for its user base of 7 million people, according to a press release. Now, as part of the deal, Kits founders Evan Dhillon and Kyle Dhillon and their team will join Splice to help bring these AI voice tools to the platform.

Since its founding, Kits AI found major supporters in the music industry. It’s been backed by Kygo‘s Palm Tree Crew, 3LAU, Louis Bell, Steve Aoki, Wyclef Jean, Electric Feel Ventures and other investors like Andreesen Horowitz, WndrCo Ventures and 1Confirmation. The AI voice company was also certified as “Fairly Trained,” a designation given to AI music companies that bring a responsible, licensed approach to training.

The news of the deal arrives just weeks after Splice announced a partnership with Universal Music Group to develop new “commercial AI tools” and “AI-powered virtual instruments.” It also builds on an emerging trend of AI music start-ups selling to more established firms. Earlier this week, Beatstars acquired AI music tool Lemonaide, and in 2025, Epidemic Sound acquired Song Sleuth, an AI music recognition startup.

“It was important to us to find a team that shared Splice’s creator-first values, and that was equally committed to the responsible development of AI, including artist compensation,” said Kakul Srivastava, CEO of Splice, in a statement. “Kits AI’s [machine learning] research has delivered multiple frontier models, including zero-shot voice cloning (IVC) and generative vocals (KGV1.0), both trained on fully-licensed data. I’m excited to work with this visionary team to build new ways for our customers to explore ideas, shape melodies, and experiment with sound.”

Splice’s acquisition builds on what the company has already developed in the AI space. In September, it launched generative AI tools in beta, and in 2023, the firm was early to AI with its non-generative AI tool Create, which helps users sort through the Splice library of millions of sounds and samples with greater ease.

“Our focus at Kits has always been on combining ML research and artist collaboration to deliver responsible AI music tools,” added Evan Dhillon, co-founder of Kits AI. “Joining Splice allows us to continue this work with an industry leader deeply committed to artist-centered innovation. We’re excited to bring Kits’ technology to Splice and shape the future of music creation together.”