inMusic Acquires Native Instruments
TL;DR: On May 7, 2026, inMusic Brands signed the definitive agreement to acquire Native Instruments, including iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx. The deal brings Kontakt, Traktor, Maschine, Moog, Akai Pro, and Denon DJ under one group. NI products continue to work normally during the transition.
The deal had been rumored for weeks. It became official at Superbooth 2026 in Berlin: inMusic Brands acquires Native Instruments. Five months after NI declared insolvency, the Berlin-based software company finds a buyer with the resources and structure to absorb the debt and relaunch.
What inMusic Brands Is
inMusic Brands is an American holding company based in Cumberland, Rhode Island, that brings together some of the most recognizable brands in music production and professional DJing.
inMusic's portfolio includes: Akai Professional, Moog Music, Denon DJ, Alesis, Alto Professional, M-Audio, Numark, Rane, HeadRush, and others. The company's strategy is to consolidate niche brands with a strong user base, keeping them operating as independent brands while optimizing hardware and software development synergies.
With Native Instruments, inMusic adds the software and plugin dimension to an ecosystem that had until now been mostly hardware.
Why Native Instruments Was for Sale
Native Instruments declared insolvency on January 27, 2026. The root of the problem traces back to the leveraged buyout led by Francisco Partners: the company found itself with around £250 million in debt against estimated annual revenue of about £25 million.
An earlier acquisition attempt by Bridgepoint Group and Bain Capital Credit had been approved by the European Commission in 2025, but the deal fell through in early 2026. The investors pulled out, citing the unsustainability of debt servicing in a high-interest-rate environment.
Result: preliminary insolvency proceedings, an urgent search for a strategic buyer.
What the Deal Includes
The acquisition isn't just about the Native Instruments brand. The package includes:
- Kontakt — the world's most widely used sampler in professional production
- Traktor — the go-to professional DJ platform
- Maschine — the hardware/software beat production ecosystem
- NKS — the integration standard between controllers and third-party plugins
- iZotope — mastering, mixing, and audio restoration tools (RX, Ozone, Neutron)
- Plugin Alliance and Brainworx — one of the largest plugin libraries in the pro audio market
inMusic inherits a complete software ecosystem spanning production, DJing, and professional audio post-production.
Synergies with Akai, MPC, and M-Audio
This isn't the first time inMusic and Native Instruments have worked together. In 2025 the two companies had already announced a strategic collaboration: NKS integration in Akai MPK and M-Audio Oxygen controllers, and access to Native Instruments' sound libraries on the standalone MPC platform.
That collaboration is now the starting point for a much deeper integration. Akai, Maschine, and MPC controllers can build a coherent ecosystem. Sound designers using Kontakt find natural paths toward Akai hardware. Traktor DJs have Denon DJ within the same group.
The Advantage for Producers
For music producers, the convergence between Akai/MPC hardware and Kontakt/Maschine software creates a vertical workflow. Firmware and software updates can be coordinated. Sound libraries can move more freely across platforms.
The Advantage for DJs
Traktor remains the premium DJ software platform. With Denon DJ and Rane hardware in the same group, tighter software-controller integration becomes possible where third-party solutions are needed today.
The Advantage for Pro Audio
iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx already form a professional mastering stack on their own. Combined with inMusic's distribution network and its relationships with major DAW vendors, the commercial reach of these tools expands.
What Happens to NI Products Now
inMusic has been clear: the products, services, platforms, and customer support of all brands continue operating normally in every territory.
Nick Williams, CEO of Native Instruments, confirmed the message: the tools users rely on today will keep working, and the tools of tomorrow are in active development.
The transaction has yet to formally close — the wait is a few weeks, subject to the usual closing conditions. But operationally, Native Instruments keeps working.
What This Means for the Music Tech Market
The acquisition redraws the balance of power in the digital music instrument sector.
Steinberg (Yamaha) has Cubase and Nuendo. Avid has Pro Tools. Apple has Logic. Ableton remains independent. With this move, inMusic builds the most complete multi-brand alternative: covering hardware, software, DJing, production, and mastering with brands that already have an established user base.
The risk, as with any acquisition of this kind, is fragmentation of development and the loss of the teams that built the technical know-how. inMusic has experience keeping brands operational after acquisitions. If it applies the same approach to NI, that's a positive signal.
Conclusion
The union of inMusic and Native Instruments is one of the most significant deals in music tech in recent years. A company with unsustainable debt finds a strategic buyer with the structure to support its relaunch. Users of Kontakt, Traktor, and Maschine now have an owner with the resources to keep the products alive — and inMusic's track record suggests that's exactly what it will do.
The next chapter will depend on how the brands are actually integrated. But the deal signed at Superbooth 2026 is, for now, the most significant news of the year in the industry.
Sources: inMusic Brands · Native Instruments Blog · MusicRadar · Music Ally · Production Expert