New York, NY (June 14, 2023)—After co-existing as separate entities under the same umbrella company for the last year, musical instrument software/hardware manufacturer Native Instruments announced today that it has absorbed plug-in specialists iZotope, Brainworx and Plugin Alliance. The announcement marks the latest move in a string of efforts to integrate the various companies, all owned by private equity firm Francisco Partners.
With all the companies integrating, their various customers will soon be able to use a single login for accounts across all three brands; deal with a single online retail space for their wares; use Native Instruments’ Native Access for installing and authenticating all the brands’ products; and more.
As as recap, in 2017, NI received an investment of €50 million from private equity firm EMH Partners. EHM eventually invested more in Native Instruments in 2020 to become a majority owner, but that was short-lived, as it quickly turned around and sold Native Instruments to Francisco Partners in January 2021. Less than two months later, in March 2021, Francisco Partners acquired iZotope, placing it and Native Instruments together under an umbrella parent company, Music Creation Group.
The sibling companies got more brethren in April, 2022, when they were joined by Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. The occasion was enough that Music Creation Group was simultaneously renamed Soundwide in order to oversee all four companies; however, the name never reached the expected level of industry recognition, according to Native Instruments’ announcement: “While the spirit of Soundwide lives on—our brands coming together to empower creativity—the Soundwide name wasn’t as familiar to our community. With that in mind, we made the choice to move forward with a brand that more people know and love: Native Instruments.”
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Soundwide’s website confirms that iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx are being rolled into Native Instruments as sub-brands, rather than standalone entities under a parent company, explaining “Native Instruments will now serve as the main brand for iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx.”
Native Instruments’ site noted that bringing the other brands under its own wing would result in “further strengthening the breadth of our offerings, the expertise on our team, and the potential to offer our community a streamlined customer experience. With our powers combined, we have engineering capabilities across integrated software and hardware, AI and machine learning, cloud, and more.”
Nonetheless, the iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx names are unlikely to go away anytime soon; the Native Instruments announcement outlines future plans for them, noting more iZotope and Brainworx products will appear in Native Access, while educational content and end-user stories will appear on Native Instruments-branded media. Cross-brand integration is expected as well, though Plugin Alliance will remain separate from Native Instruments since it is a marketplace for numerous third-party offerings.
Bringing companies together is not uncommon with Francisco Partners; the technology-focused private equity firm has raised $45 billion over the years and made more than 260 portfolio acquisitions, resulting in a current stable of 140-plus investments.
