What does Akai, Moog, Numark, M-Audio, and Native Instruments all have in common? They’re owned by the same company (or will be). Today, inMusic Brands announced that they’re going to buy Native Instruments and increase their music tech portfolio even more.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been keeping up with music tech business all that much so I didn’t know about inMusic Brands or the fact that they owned Akai and a ton of other major companies. With the acquisition, it means that there are massive opportunities for cross-pollination when it comes to hardware and software so it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some collabs off the back of this.
As ever, Peter Kirn from CDM had some initial thoughts:
I know not everyone is going to like this deal. But on the other hand, the industry has potentially dodged a bullet. Sequential, Novation, Moog — a lot of the most storied brands are now continuing largely because of acquisitions. It’s now up to inMusic to preserve not just the IP but the talent and creativity that produced these tools, and most importantly, the relationships and trust built with customers.
Here, here! I’m always wary of any acquisition because it usually means job cuts (as Peter also said) and potentially adding invasive business practices in places they didn’t exist before. Or they let a brand die and sell it on. I will remain neutral in the face of this and see how it goes but Akai and Moog are still doing well so maybe NI will bounce back too?