GRAI Acquires Hangout: 2 Million Users and 100 Million Licensed Tracks for a New AI Streaming Platform

AI startup GRAI has acquired Hangout, a US-based platform for listening to music together, built by Turntable Labs. The deal is structured as a merger: rather than acquiring specific assets, GRAI acquired the entire company, which is now a subsidiary of GRAI. The deal's terms were not disclosed. Hangout founder Joseph Perla will join GRAI as a board observer.

Hangout launched in November 2024 and now has a catalog of 100 million tracks licensed from Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Merlin. Users create virtual rooms — Hangouts — and take turns DJing for friends and other participants. By the end of 2025, the service's user base had surpassed 2 million. Last December, Hangout also added a generative AI feature, Turntable.AI, for creating music from a text prompt.

For GRAI, the deal will support the social music platform it's preparing to launch, where users will be able not just to listen to music but to create their own versions of it, while rights holders will be able to control that use of their music and receive payouts. The merger will also give GRAI insight into user behavior around listening together.

GRAI was founded in 2025 by the team behind Vochi, an AI video-editing app acquired by Pinterest. Five months ago, the startup raised $9 million in a seed round, and in late August, together with Udio, it secured a license to the Music IP Holdings patent portfolio for working with AI music.