What happened
inMusic has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Native Instruments, the Berlin company behind the Kontakt sampler platform and the Traktor DJ platform, along with iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. Financial terms were not disclosed. Native Instruments says it has direct relationships with more than 25 million registered users.
The two had already worked together: a 2025 collaboration brought NKS integration to Akai Professional's MPK and M-Audio's Oxygen controllers, and put Native Instruments sounds on the standalone MPC for the first time. NI chief executive Nick Williams told users that the products, platforms and brands they rely on continue, and thanked them for their loyalty through what he called one of the most challenging periods in the company's history.
The interesting bit
For DJs the question is narrower than the press release. Traktor now sits in the same portfolio as Engine DJ: two competing platforms, two separate libraries, one owner. Both have users who spent a decade tagging, cueing and gridding a collection inside them, and that work does not migrate cleanly between them.
inMusic chief executive Jack O'Donnell has promised continued investment across all brands and product lines. It is the right sentence to say; the thing to watch is the release notes over the next two years, because they will answer it either way.