Native Instruments Lost Its Entire Support Team This Week. Days Later, Its Plugin Alliance Founder Bought His Company Back.

What happened at Native Instruments this week?

inMusic, which also owns Akai and Moog and formally acquired Native Instruments in May 2026 after the software maker's preliminary insolvency filing, laid off roughly 100 NI employees this week. That is according to Synth Anatomy, which reported the cuts on 16 July 2026 based on messages with dismissed staff and posts from a former employee on Reddit, because neither inMusic nor Native Instruments has issued a public statement. The layoffs reportedly hit development, hardware and support across the board, and one former staffer told Synth Anatomy the entire customer support team was let go. Some of those affected are said to be on garden leave through September, with certain roles potentially folded into other inMusic brands.

For a company whose software (Kontakt, Maschine, Komplete) sits on thousands of production and DJ setups, wiping out the support desk in one move lands directly on customers, not just on a spreadsheet.

Why is a former owner buying pieces of it back?

Two days after the layoff story broke, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx announced they were leaving the NI/inMusic fold entirely. Dirk Ulrich, who built Brainworx roughly two decades ago and launched Plugin Alliance in 2012 before selling both into the NI orbit in 2021, has reacquired them outright through RCKFRC, a new holding company he set up that also owns Apogee and Manley Labs.

"Your plugins, your licenses and your projects will remain our highest priority."

The announcement frames the move as continuity, not disruption: existing customers keep their software and licenses, and product development continues. According to Synth Anatomy, Winfried Schapitz returns as Brainworx CEO and Mark Ulrich takes over marketing and sales. On the roadmap: Plugin Alliance processing built into Apogee's interfaces, and new plugins developed through a Manley collaboration, tying the whole RCKFRC portfolio together for the first time.

How did Native Instruments end up here?

The trouble traces back to 2021, when private equity firm Francisco Partners took a majority stake and funded a debt-driven acquisition spree that folded in iZotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx. Per Bloomberg, NI racked up roughly €288 million in losses across 2023 and 2024 against €262 million in maturing debt, and filed for preliminary insolvency in January 2026 after a sale attempt collapsed. inMusic picked up the pieces in May. Plugin Alliance and Brainworx, the two most recent PE-era acquisitions, are now the first to walk back out the door, under the man who built them in the first place.