Why did inMusic lay off 100 employees from Native Instruments?

Music technology conglomerate inMusic has allegedly laid off approximately 100 Native Instruments (NI) employees, according to inside reports. This massive job cut follows inMusic’s acquisition of Native Instruments in May.

Along with the job cuts, the companies under the NI umbrella now have new owners. iZotope belongs to Boris FX while Plugin Alliance and Brainworx have been reclaimed by original founder Dirk Ulrich.

Per an anonymous Reddit post first reported by Synth Anatomy and shared in the NI subreddit, layoffs affected every department at NI. The author said the entire customer support team was let go, as inMusic’s support department covers all of its brands.

“The organisation is a mess, and I have little faith it will get better considering the individuals they’ve chosen to lead,” the post reads in part. “Customers don’t matter right now despite what you hear or read about the company or inMusic.”

Native Instruments declined to respond to MusicTech‘s request for comment.

At the time of the inMusic purchase, Native Instruments CEO Nick Williams said: “We have found a partner whose beliefs and ambitions align with ours.”

Back in 2019 and 2020, NI underwent another round of mass layoffs and restructuring before being acquired by the private equity firm Francisco Partners.

The latest round of alleged layoffs is a confusing move, given the positive interview recently given by inMusic’s Jack O’Donnell. “The future for NI, I can assure you, is very exciting, very bright, and very secure,” he said in the first few seconds of the video.

It’s currently unclear whether any Native Instruments employees from departments such as Maschine, Traktor and Kontrol have been laid of as part of this process. The music production community has speculated whether these NI categories will be among the first to be dissolved, since they have fierce competition within inMusic already – Akai‘s MPC, Denon DJ, Numark and M-Audio are all major rivals to these NI sub-brands.

NI had been struggling financially for years before inMusic moved to acquire the company. At the beginning of this year, NI entered preliminary insolvency proceedings. The inMusic purchase came less than four months later, so it’s likely the acquisition was laid out as part of a potential plan within the proceedings.

MusicTech will continue to report on this story as we learn more.

Harry Levin is a freelance journalist with credits in SPIN, Billboard, MusicTech, Grammy.com, Los Angeles Magazine, and more. His musical journey began 20 years ago with a Led Zeppelin CD. He played jazz trombone through college, produced large-scale electronic music events, and now spends his professional time writing and editing.