Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[Vocalpoint Studios]

Funny how these VCs roll in, promise to “streamline operations,” go into full M&A mode, then “remove redundancies” they literally just created (aka firing people). And when they finally realize they can’t squeeze the margins they imagined out of a business they never understood in the first place, they sell it off in pieces. Pure vulture capitalism.

This is the standard playbook. And should not be unexpected either. Unfortunately.

VP

[digitalboytn]

In a professional sense, skills are far more important than workflows. Well-developed skills can easily adapt to any changing workflow.

[enCiphered]

Wow, really sad to hear that. The real concern is the people behind the products.
Does anyone know roughly how many employees are affected? Regardless of opinions about recent business decisions, that’s a lot of highly skilled developers, designers and sound designers potentially caught in the fallout. Genuinely sad to see, and I hope the team lands on their feet.

[Funky40]

(Since 2021, Francisco Partners had a majority stake in NI and remains the parent company.)

what i am curious about is:
can "they" turn that behind the scenes into a financial win for "them" ?

some posts here seem to steer already into such a direction, or not ?


quote taken from:
https://cdm.link/ni-insolvency/

[Vocalpoint Studios]

I love how many people immediately go to doom and gloom when anything changes

There is still value in the brand name. They will get purchased by someone. All your software is not going to stop working and vanish from your systems overnight.

In a professional sense, skills are far more important than workflows. Well-developed skills can easily adapt to any changing workflow.

Well - not necessarily "doom and gloom" but be ready for massive change.

As far as the "brand name" goes - some parts of the NI portfolio have some value - others do not. Depending on what your thing was with NI - could be great or it could be disappointing.

VP

[Vocalpoint Studios]

(Since 2021, Francisco Partners had a majority stake in NI and remains the parent company.)

what i am curious about is:
can "they" turn that behind the scenes into a financial win for "them" ?

Some VC sales are fire sales where other turn a profit. Not necessarily big - but a profit none the less.

Francisco has been doing this a long time - this move should come as not surprise but I am guessing they did not want to file for insolvency.

That is never a good sign of a "profitable" sale scenario.

VP

[Mike777]

Back in Windows XP days I was stunned when I heard how great sampled plugins sounded over my workstation synth. So I got Kontakt 4 back then. NI has since made some of the best sampled instrument plugins. However a lot of competition has sprung up, often making even better sounding plugins. And there is a lot of excellent free instrument plugins as well.

This is why Omnisphere is so expensive! To stay in business!

I hope IKM can survive. IKM seems to have a very different marketing approach from NI, with more sales, discounts and bundles etc.

[Gamma-UT]

Holy crap! What does this mean for all NI customers? Think of Kontakt alone and all the 3rd party developers that have made instruments that only work in Kontakt.

This could be absolutely devastating for all of us. I can't tell you how much NI stuff I own.

I doubt it would go under completely. The Kontakt user base alone is valuable enough to make sense to a company like Yamaha or Fender. Just pray it isn't Avid or Gibson.

But it's bad news long-term given all the copy protection is challenge-response, so more stuff is going to fall off and become unusable even in the, er, best case, which would probably be Yamaha. They at least like making musical instruments and aren't private-equity.

[Gamma-UT]

It would be ironic if Dirk bought PA back and got NI along with it. But IIRC, he sank a pile of cash into the Soundwide deal, and has already bought Apogee, so probably not a strong contender – though maybe he was able to extricate some cash from Soundwide.

[0degree]

Sad news and the end of an era in music production industry. I guess Reaktor update is not coming anytime soon?

[Cuauhtli]

Plugin Alliance and iZotope are part of the mix as well aren't they?

Reaktor will be replaced by AI. You're already seeing attempts to have AI create sounds based on written/verbal cues.

[Gamma-UT]

Sad news and the end of an era in music production industry. I guess Reaktor update is not coming anytime soon?

That does seem a safe bet at this stage. The way Native Access has been playing up recently, there may be a lot of issues in the near term.

[VitaminD]

Before VCs were in NI's business, they were throwing sample packs and soundware around left and right. Instead of updating and developing the Kore products that made them a household brand in the pro audio market, they opted for easy short term profits. That started the down trend. That necessitated the VC interests. The NI "ship" was steered into the iceberg decades ago.

[Cuauhtli]

Not enough Absynth sales I guess.

[mcbpete]

Plugin Alliance and iZotope are part of the mix as well aren't they?

This is what I was thinking too - I was under the impression that, if anything, those were the two would've 'disappeared' first and be added to the Native Instruments brand