Image Credit: Jonas Zürcher

Shareholders have sold a majority stake in Native Instruments to Francisco Partners.

While we’ve all been largely stuck at home over the past year, the ability to easily create music has been a welcome release. The music tech market has grown as a result. 1.5 million people a month were using Native Instrument products to make music and DJ by the end of 2020.

As a result, Native Instrument’s majority stake owner, investment company EMH Partners, is selling its shares to Francisco Partners. They’re a global investment firm which specialises in partnering with technology businesses, and have clearly taken notice of Native Instruments’ growth over the past year.

Matt Spetzler, Co-Head of Europe at Francisco Partners, said:

As an innovator in digital music creation, with a supreme brand recognition and outstanding software technology, Native Instruments is a perfect platform and partner for Francisco Partners. We look forward to working together with the management team and the existing shareholder group, utilising our broad operational and strategic experience and M&A capabilities to help the company accelerate its growth trajectory. said

Matt Spetzler, Co-Head Europe and Partner at Francisco Partners

Native Instruments make professional musical production hardware, software and digital tools. Anyone from professional studio musicians to hobbyists can use the tools to create any style and genre of music. An estimated 8 out of 10 tracks in the Billboard top 10 are made using Native Instruments tech. Founded in 1996 in Berlin, it employs 400 employees worldwide, operating seven global offices and is active in more than 180 countries. 

Constantin Koehncke, CEO of Native Instruments, said:

There’s never been a more exciting time in music, with more creators producing more high-quality music all around the world. We’re thrilled to team up with Francisco Partners to enter the next phase of our journey, combining their global resources and expertise with our passionate team, deep relationships within music and proven track record of technical innovation. Together we can realize our mission to empower and inspire the global community of music creators and help them unlock their creative potential through more seamless experiences. Thanks to the support of EMH Partners over the past years we were able to further reinforce and expand our position as the leading digital music creation company, and we now look forward to working with Francisco Partners, EMH Partners and the founding shareholders to continue on this amazing journey.

Constantin Koehncke, CEO of Native Instruments

Key employees of Native Instruments and members of the Native Instruments founding team will keep a minority shareholding in the company.