What Happened to Native Instruments in 2026: Insolvency, the inMusic Takeover and the Brand Split

Kontakt, Komplete, Maschine and Traktor are among the most widely used tools in music production. Until mid-2026 they belonged to a group that also included iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. Within six months, Native Instruments applied for insolvency proceedings and was sold to inMusic, and the three brands that had joined in 2021 and 2022 went to other buyers.

The sequence of events follows from statements by Native Instruments, inMusic, Boris FX and Plugin Alliance, from the European Commission’s merger file and from the UK company register. The status is 17 September 2026. Anything that rests only on reports citing anonymous sources is marked as such.

2021 to 2023: four brands under one roof

In January 2021, the investment firm Francisco Partners invested in Native Instruments. In March of the same year it announced that Native Instruments and iZotope would form one group, led jointly by the heads of both companies, Constantin Köhncke and Mark Ethier. In April 2022 the group bought Plugin Alliance and Brainworx and adopted the name Soundwide. At the time the group cited more than 600 employees and around 10 million users.

The merger did not come without cuts. In January 2023, Soundwide cut 8 per cent of its jobs worldwide, and chief executive Rob Singer cited challenging economic conditions. In June 2023 the group dropped the Soundwide name because it was little known in the community, and iZotope, Brainworx and Plugin Alliance became part of Native Instruments.

December 2025: a cleared takeover

On 4 December 2025, the European Commission cleared a takeover: funds of Bridgepoint and Bain Capital Credit were to acquire indirect joint control of Native Instruments Group GmbH. In the notification, Bain Capital Credit describes itself as a global credit specialist and Bridgepoint as an investor in private equity, infrastructure and private credit. According to the trade press, this takeover was never completed. The insolvency application followed less than eight weeks after the clearance. Native Instruments has not publicly given a reason for it.

January to March 2026: the insolvency proceedings

On 27 January 2026, Native Instruments applied to the Charlottenburg Local Court in Berlin to open insolvency proceedings, and the court appointed Prof. Dr Torsten Martini as preliminary insolvency administrator. Under Section 21 of the German Insolvency Code, the preliminary phase serves to prevent detrimental changes to the debtor’s assets until the court decides on the application. The business keeps operating, and the court can order that transactions by the company only take effect with the consent of the preliminary administrator.

Two days after the application, chief executive Nick Williams stated that Native Instruments GmbH and three German non-operating holding companies were affected. Business was continuing as usual at Native Instruments, iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx: hardware and software remained on sale and available for download and activation. The NKS partnerships team was also still processing Kontakt Player licences and NKS partner submissions. That matters to the many developers that sell their own libraries for the free Kontakt Player. Plugin Alliance had already clarified on 28 January that its operating companies were not part of the filing.

On 19 March, Williams announced that Native Instruments GmbH and other German entities would move from preliminary into formal insolvency proceedings where applicable. At the same time the company was looking for new shareholders and reported strong interest from several parties with roots in audio and technology.

May to July 2026: sale to inMusic and break-up

On 8 May 2026, inMusic signed a definitive agreement to acquire Native Instruments. The inMusic portfolio includes Akai Professional, Moog Music, Denon DJ, Numark, Rane, M-Audio, Alesis and Engine DJ. According to the announcement, Native Instruments brought a direct relationship with more than 25 million registered users, and inMusic chief executive Jack O’Donnell promised that the tools in use today would keep working. The companies were not strangers: since NAMM in January 2025, the MPK Mini controllers from Akai Professional and the Oxygen keyboards from M-Audio have supported the NKS standard of Native Instruments, and five expansions and five instruments from Native Instruments were released for Akai’s MPC platform.

The acquisition was completed on 30 June 2026. In the two weeks or so that followed, the group formed in 2022 was split up:

• iZotope, with RX, Ozone, Neutron and Nectar, has belonged to Boris FX, a maker of post-production software, since 2 July 2026. According to Boris FX, the purchase was coordinated with the acquisition by inMusic; iZotope continues as a separate business unit with its engineering, product and support teams.
• Plugin Alliance and Brainworx have been owned by their founder Dirk Ulrich again since 15 July 2026. Both are now part of his holding company RCKFRC, which already owns Apogee and Manley.

Native Instruments stays with inMusic, together with Kontakt, Komplete, Komplete Kontrol, Maschine, Reaktor and Traktor.

July to September 2026: restructuring under inMusic

In mid-July, Synth Anatomy and later MusicTech reported around 100 layoffs across almost all departments. The reports rely on anonymous former employees and a Reddit post. According to them, the entire customer support team of Native Instruments was also dissolved and folded into inMusic’s support. Native Instruments declined to comment to MusicTech, and there is no official figure.

A change at the top of the UK subsidiary is documented. For Native Instruments UK Limited, the Companies House register records that Simon Cross ceased to be a director on 30 June 2026 and Nick Williams on 29 July 2026, and that Richard Seymour, head of inMusic Europe according to Gearnews, was appointed on 1 July. In August, Gearnews reported the closure of the UK office. inMusic said that, as part of the integration, it was simplifying its organisational and legal structure, including Native Instruments UK.

Development continues: on 4 September 2026, Kontakt 8.13 was released with improvements to the Navigator, level meters in the instrument headers, a new dialogue for saving snapshots and several fixes.

What it means for licences, libraries and hardware

According to all three statements, purchased licences remain valid. They are managed separately by owner: iZotope products through the iZotope account, and products from Plugin Alliance and Brainworx through the Plugin Alliance Installation Manager, whose downloads and activations continue as normal according to Dirk Ulrich. For Native Instruments, inMusic has not announced any change to Native Access. Plugin Alliance writes that the brands shared many services over the previous four years; how far these have been separated since is not visible from the outside.

For third-party Kontakt libraries, the Kontakt Player licensing programme is what counts. It continued during the insolvency proceedings, and Kontakt 8.13 is already an update of the sampler released under inMusic.

The product strategy remains open. With Denon DJ, Numark, Rane and Engine DJ, inMusic owns DJ brands alongside Traktor, and with the MPC range from Akai Professional it owns a groovebox platform alongside Maschine. As of 17 September 2026, there are no statements on the future of these lines. In a transition like this, a local backup of installers, serial numbers and the list of purchased products is sensible, because reinstalling on another computer depends on the manufacturer’s activation services.

Assessment

Native Instruments continues as a brand, but the group of 2022 no longer exists. The consolidation that began under Francisco Partners in 2021 had been reversed a little over two weeks after the sale: iZotope belongs to a maker of post-production software, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx belong to their founder again, and Kontakt, Komplete, Maschine and Traktor belong to a hardware group that already has its own products in several of these categories.

All three new owners have committed to keeping the products running for existing customers, and updates are still being released. Which products inMusic develops further, merges or discontinues in the long run is the real open question, and only the next product announcements will answer it.