In an era of AI-co-pilots, Surf addresses the very human need to work together with other humans (it also, of course, has an AI element – more of that later). It’s a collaboration platform that features “lyrics sheets, stems, and split sheets which are all tied to the song” as well as tools like auto-translated chat, to allow creators to meet and work with people outside of their region.

The other side to the Tokyo-based company’s platform is discovery, and any songs that are uploaded to the platform by creators are tagged by AI, to power a search and recommendation engine that connects collaborators, and creators with A&R.

The company has onboarded the major labels in Japan too, which, the company says, means that A&Rs at these labels are incentivised to search for artists’ music.

Surf has now launched a Freemium tier, which aims to draw in more users to supplement its current user base of “900 creators and 400 A&Rs across 27 countries.”