Apple may not have purchased Asaii, but hired its founders instead

Yesterday it was reported that Apple has acquired Asaii, a music analytics company. The deal, which appears to be verified by employee LinkedIn profiles, was worth less than $100 million, according to Axios.

However, today TechCrunch says that’s incorrect and Apple has hired a few employees of Asaii — specifically the three founders, Sony Theakanath, Austin Chen and Chris Zhang — who are all now working on Apple Music. 

TechCrunch notes that it’s not clear if the three will be working on similar technology, or other kinds of tools to affect how music is discovered on Apple Music. Apple has already launched a beta of its own analytics service called Apple Music for Artists.