Source: https://musictech.com/news/industry/inmusic-shut-down-native-instruments-uk/

After acquiring Native Instruments in May 2026, InMusic has allegedly closed the brand’s UK office, putting its UK team members at risk of termination.

According to company filings in July, Native Instruments’ CEO, Nick Williams, has been removed, along with Simon Cross, the chief product and technology officer. InMusic Europe’s CEO, Richard Seymour, has seemingly replaced them.

The closure of the Native Instruments UK office may see the termination of positions including product manager, product designer, engineering manager, chief financial officer, VP global marketing, senior product designer, and senior product engineer. Many of these positions cover work on Maschine, Kontakt, and Komplete. The alleged cuts may also see the removal of Tim Adnitt, who is president of the MIDI Association and VP of product and sound design at Native Instruments.

The news first surfaced in a Reddit thread last week, which read: “The layoffs continue: InMusic just fired the whole native instruments UK office…What everyone already thought about InMusic turns out to be correct once again.”

In a statement issued to MusicTech, InMusic Brands says:

“As part of the ongoing integration of Native Instruments into the inMusic family of brands, we are simplifying our organisational and legal structure, including Native Instruments UK. This includes removing layers that were established to support a private equity ownership model, as well as streamlining other areas of the business to create a faster, more efficient organisation focused on innovation, customers, and long-term growth.

“We recognise the impact these changes have on affected employees and are committed to supporting them throughout the transition.

“Native Instruments remains a strategically important part of inMusic, and our commitment to the brand is unchanged. Product development continues at a strong pace, with major new hardware and software initiatives already underway for 2027 and beyond.”

Meanwhile, a number of new roles have appeared on InMusic’s career page, mostly based in Rhode Island, USA, and Cambridge, UK. These positions include content development engineer, lead product manager, lead product designer, and more product-focused responsibilities.

This mass layoff follows news from July that InMusic fired 100 employees across all departments at Native Instruments.

Upon acquiring Native Instruments, InMusic published a sit-down interview with its global CEO and founder, Jack O’Donnell. Within the first few seconds of the interview, Jack O’Donnell says: “The future for NI, I can assure you, is very exciting, very bright, and very secure.”


The news echoes InMusic’s decisions following its acquisition of Moog Music in June 2023. The brand’s original statement, which is no longer accessible via Moog’s website, claimed that, in acquiring Moog, it would “offer solutions to support the areas that have been ongoing challenges for our company as a small manufacturing business”. By late September 2023, InMusic had laid off 30 team members at Moog’s historic HQ in Asheville, North Carolina, and moved parts of its manufacturing pipeline to Taiwan. Moog has released two major synthesizers since then: Muse and Messenger,

InMusic is also the parent company of Akai, Alesis, Numark, Denon DJ, RANE, M-Audio, and more.

 

its all about money! dont you get it.

 

Capital controls.
MEAN production.
It's just business...
Don't take it personally!

We're all just monkeys
Wearing pants until
We're not

There can only be one.

 

You're all so cynical. A rising share holder lifts all boats.

 

I'd bet cash money that the wide proliferation of software piracy had something to do with the fate of Native Instruments.

 

What everyone already thought about Native Instruments turns out to be correct once again.

and ego shooter games, immigrants, lazy young people and all the other usual suspects.

the only people who are completely innocent are the management of native instruments. only all others are responsible.

 

Finally they listened to my complain about an old audio card drivers for win10, good job!

 

Not really shocked. They bought a failing company. Why keep the people who let it fail employed? Especially if you already have members of your staff that are a good match as a replacement for one of those people let go.

 

Yeah, good trolling. You mean the management that allowed the company to get 400 million quid in debt?

It had 500 employees - a ridiculous number. I mean, what were they all doing? They weren't bringing out much new software, and their customer support was notoriously bad. InMusic were right what they said in that article, way too many management "layers" on a good whack that had a lot of meetings but didn't actually produce anything.

 

Last edited: Aug 11, 2026

Saving money the easy way and raise shareholders gain
Done!

 

I happened to know an NI employee (working there* until recently, though I don't know if still working at the moment). Activity? Meetings, meetings, "important" discussions and posting "important thoughts" on social media.

*In Berlin, not in the UK, to be precise.

I have the impression that all the people who wanted to really work and do something relevant left a decade ago.

 

The first thing you learn as a business student at university is this: profit, profit, profit!

As you can see, the only thing that counts is the plus sign before the zero.
Anyone who doesn't generate a profit ends up unemployed.

 

I wonder where inMusic is going to take NI. When I worked for a sinking ship, the first thing they did was outsource 9/10 programming and art jobs with quality instantly cratering and never recovering.

I remain sceptical about the future of Kontakt, particularly as a platform for 3rd party developers.

Perhaps they're going to turn NI into loop/preset pack diarrhoea and Kontakt into their 'just about good enough for our own stuff, but unacceptably bad for everyone else' sampler.

 

1. buy failing company
2. fire everyone
3. close company
4. ???
5. profit

 

Putabida

 

infantile is the idea that humanity can continue like that.

or that it would be a loss that some unproductive NI "managers" are getting fired, for that matter. they only got what they deserved.

 

My only criticism of the world we live in, is that while I totally agree with 'out with the old and in with the new' if the new is definitely a major improvement - My only issue with human decision making is that instead of taking their time, all too often, humans have to completely discard something altogether before they get that maybe they should have been more cautious.

A perfect example everyone is living today - you pay as much or more for original analog gear than you did when it was released because someone decided that analog was crap when digital came in, instead of allowing the best of both worlds - which we have at a price now.
As you all were.

 

Last edited: Aug 11, 2026

Well, whenever someone points out that this kind of thing is happening, a bunch of folks are quick to scream "conspiracy theory!", but the evidence is right there, staring everyone in the face: you’re no longer able to buy software on physical media, you’re no longer able to buy a decent/powerful computer (for a truly fair price), but you can create full tracks just by humming into your mic (off-key? who cares!), then companies in crisis, layoffs disguised as "efficiency adjustments", and a whole lot of divided opinions.
Some see it as standard corporate behavior, while others call it plain old greed. In the end, one thing's for sure: this didn't come out of thin air. It's all there, laid out like a buffet, for anyone willing to take a good look (or smart enough to connect the dots!)

 

Someone else having "intrusive thoughts"? I wonder who's left for firing...

But it's true the layoffs for once are necessary. They've been messing things for quite some time. The only really good news is that inMusic isn't a dirty "investment funds"-type company

 

NI is in debt with 300.000.000 EUR. So what?