Former Startup Darling Genius Sells to Media Lab for $80 Million

Music-annotating startup Genius Media Group Inc., a site that drew attention in part for outsized funding from venture capitalists, has sold its assets to a Santa Monica, California-based media holding company for $80 million.

The buyer is MediaLab.Ai Inc., which will cut some jobs as part of the process. “We are restructuring the way in which original content is produced at Genius and as part of that some very talented individuals on the content and production teams were let go,” MediaLab said in a statement. The company will not make cuts to the teams handling sales, product or engineering, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. “The scale of the community platform is what attracted us to Genius and this is where we will be heavily investing going forward, with a renewed focus on emerging artists,” the company said.