Native Instruments Gets €50 Million Outside Investment To ‘Unlock The Future Of Music Creation’

Native Instruments logoBerlin-based Native Instruments has announced a €50 million investment from private equity firm EMH Partners.

NI says that the funds will be used to accelerate international growth, as well as the development of new digital services, and ‘to unlock the future of music creation for all music lovers’.

NI released a statement with the news:

Over the past 12 months the company has made key hires in Berlin and Los Angeles, including the former CEO of Beatport, Matthew Adell. These specialized teams have commenced development of new digital services, designed to redefine the landscape of music creation and the surrounding industry over the next year.

Technology has democratized music making over the past two decades; what was once held exclusively by recording studios is now available at home. However, Native Instruments believes the market potential for music creation remains untapped; and there is a huge opportunity to improve the experience for the current market.

The company plans to unlock the future of music creation for all music lovers.

“Native Instruments has written a remarkable success story since its foundation over 20 years ago, and we are now ready for the next chapter,” said Daniel Haver, CEO of Native Instruments. “By developing intuitive and powerful products we’ve empowered music creators globally to further realize their potential. Today we’re seeing demand from increasingly diverse market segments, which opens enormous potential for growth. With EMH Partners we have a strong partner at our side to exploit this potential.

Mate Galic, CTO and President added “We believe music creation products and services should be integrated in a more appealing, intuitive and cohesive way. We foresee an easily accessible music creation ecosystem that connects user centric design, with powerful technology and data, to further enable the music creators of today, and welcome the new creators of tomorrow.”

To help realize this vision, Native Instruments is engaging in a global recruitment drive to hire the world’s leading technology talent in Berlin, Los Angeles and London, and expects to announce more detailed plans in early 2018.

EMH Partners is a European private equity firm, with offices in Munich and London.

28 thoughts on “Native Instruments Gets €50 Million Outside Investment To ‘Unlock The Future Of Music Creation’

  1. The future of music? I’ll jump for joy when they go standalone but until then they are still a controller and softsynth company. Nothing wrong with that but they ain’t breaking any ground for the future, you know.

    Maybe they are making sex robots?

    1. @Robin +1 Think we’ll see much more cloud computing within the music industry in the coming years. One will have to pay a small amount of money for lots of power. It’s up to the innovative companies to transform those signals to well sounding music at the user’s end. Maybe by a specialized device for a specific cloud computing platform.

  2. Ya, that makes sense, seems like a lot of big companies are either going subscription or series of gear. Probably tired of the Komplete series. Maybe a Kompakt line of small boutique-styled synths running their softsynths like a plug out.

  3. i always had a sense komplete bundles were an unsustainable ponzi scheme.
    didnt stop me from buying and upgrading but not since KU9

    equity firms are usually a bad sign but whatever. dont care about NI anymore.

  4. For a business like NI, the future of music is tapping into the people that don’t even know they want to make music. They need a big return to keep their investors happy. So I expect a focus on making the tools easier, more accessible, more idiot proof. Digital services probably entails a SoundCloud meets BeatPort type service where you can buy the same Maschine expansions your favorite artist used on a song you like. Or buy the stems and have them automatically loaded into Traktor. Probably some subscription models of Komplete or other products but I don’t think they’ll get rid of perpetual licenses. The subscription is all part of a low buy-in price for consumers on the fence and pro musicians that like subscription models. Finally, we’ll see them integrate everything together as tight as they can. Buying an expansion or new product will be as seamless and transparent as possible. Press another button and your song will up on their SoundCloud replacement and be posted to your Facebook to spam your friends (aka other potential customers). I really hope they know when to say when because it could get crazy.

    To me it seems like an odd move for NI to take the money. They’re already the 800lb gorilla in music production. Maybe they see some writing on the wall with Roland and other companies cloud/subscription stuff and SoundCloud in a weak spot at the moment and they want to move fast. Maybe they have hardware ideas, or hear the rumbles of Microsoft returning to the music market and want to address that. Either way, wish them the best and hope they still offer KU as an outright purchase.

    1. Yeah this sounds like the end of Native Instruments for me. I guess I’ll always have use for things like Reaktor and Kontakt. But this all sounds like the typical hollow marketing PR schtick you can hear from any big corporate company. It has absolutely no meaning.

  5. They will start services to easily clear samples and create remixes for everyone. Also help you publish, distribute and monetize your creations. So far they make great tools to create music, but nothing to help their users take the next step. Their future is not in creating, but monetizing content.

  6. You know this will involved cloud services, and you know it will involve trying to reach an audience that is not it’s current customers. Hopefully that doesn’t erode existing products, but sadly it usually does.

  7. I wonder if this will allow them to properly update their soft synth range………….I know I am happy with an SH101 being what it is but soft synths can improve. Massive is 10 years old and pretty much the same as when it was launched. FM8 is also 10 years old (I am letting NI off over updating FM7). Absynth has its roots 17 years ago. For a synthesist on SYNTHtopia, this isn’t good enough.

    NI have sent us down a few dead ends before.

    On a more positive note Reaktor keeps progressing and Maschine still supports the original hardware (although it is a little tricky to use now).

    From the quotes in the main article I think this will be a way of making money out of using NI products. Could it be a way of using NI technology to make complete tracks and selling them on a beatport type platform?

    All I want are some more drum engine plug ins for Maschine rather than more sample packs. Make it like the drum machine on juice it wants to be.

  8. it means new employees and new hw.
    NI should invest on real instruments, I own Complete 9 and never upgraded because lots of competitors vsts are similar or better.
    For example orchestral instruments aren’t comparable to the 8Dio or Spitfire Audio ones.
    They sound cheap.
    NI has to invest in creating new hardware, new synths, new stand alone drum machines.
    Today modern laptops are good only for VR videogames, a decent cheap processor for tablets or tv boxes can handle many virtual instruments.
    Regards.

  9. > Mate Galic, CTO and President said “We
    > believe music creation products and
    > services should be integrated in a more
    > appealing, intuitive and cohesive way.”

    says the guy who so far didn´t come up with a decent song mode for maschine… *facepalm*. inmusic stole the show with their new standalone mpc´s. the factory content by loopmasters is awesome. use the keygroup mode plus a midi/usb keyboard, and the new mpc´s blow even workstations like the fa-06 out of the water.. hell, even the kronos, at least workflow-wise. native instruments should have hired pete goodliffe, akai´s mpc programmer, years ago. the man is a genius. with the current firmware update, the mpc live works like a charm. the mpc live has a touch display, maschine mk3 has not. that says it all.

  10. I don’t even know why I keep reading about all this new hardware/software/cloud services/etc.
    Realistically, I’ve already got enough instruments/software to make music for the rest of my life. All this new stuff is just a distraction, keeps me from writing and using what I have…

  11. “We foresee an easily accessible music creation ecosystem that connects user centric design, with powerful technology and data, to further enable the music creators of today, and welcome the new creators of tomorrow”

    €50 Million to develop a cloud based subscription service app probably using ‘stems’ and NI synths – are they launching their own satellite for this? someones going to be disappointed.

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