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The two brands come together under a new private equity-backed technology group
“THE PARTNERSHIP HAS MUCH OF THE SOFTWARE REALM COVERED”
>In one of the biggest moves we’ve seen in music tech in some time, Berlin-based Maschine and Komplete creators Native Instruments have joined forces with US software innovators iZotope. The two will now form a new group, backed by investment firms Francisco Partners and EMH Partners.
This investment isn’t new for NI – both firms have been involved with the Berlin company since January when Francisco Partners bought shares from both NI and EMH Partners to become the majority shareholder. Five months prior to that, NI’s Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Haver and Chief Innovation Officer and President Mate Galić stepped down from their roles, making way for a new leadership team. The addition of iZotope to the investors’ roster certainly strengthens the new group though.
So what does this mean for owners and fans of NI or iZotope products? In the short term at least, very little. The two companies will continue to operate independently, and there will be no structural changes at either of them. NI and iZotope will now work alongside each other on their “shared vision of a seamless creative experience”. Whether this will mean co-branded products, behind-the-scenes collaboration or simply greater interoperability between the two product lines remains to be seen.
Although nobody involved is offering any clues about future plans, we can speculate a little. It’s interesting, for one thing, that the partnership is being referred to as a new ‘technology group’, which makes us wonder if additional brands will join the fold soon. Given how, between them, the new partnership has much of the software realm covered, adding a DAW seems like an obvious next step.
Conversely, there were rumours last year that NI was eyeing-up a sale of its DJ strand Traktor to Allen & Heath. While nothing seemed to come from this at the time, the new partnership does make Traktor seem like even more of an outlier within the collective product line, so we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it sold off to a company with more of a DJ focus.
There are obvious opportunities in collaboration between the two brands – a new co-branded, Komplete-style software bundle? iZotope effects in Maschine+? iZotope’s AI ‘Assistant’ features in NI plugins? With big investment comes the expectation of big profits though and – while there’s currently no sign of the dreaded subscription model, as predicted by some online commenters – we hope both companies are given plenty of space for innovation in this new world.
Matt Spetzler, Co-Head Europe and Partner at Francisco Partners, certainly isn’t giving anything away regarding future plans.
“Through our personal passions for music, we find Native
Instruments and iZotope to be two impressive pillars of the audio creation industry,” he says. “As we have gotten to know each company and their teams, we’re convinced that they’ll transform and expand the industry by working together.”