After acquiring Native Instruments in May 2026, InMusic has allegedly closed the brand’s UK office, putting UK team members at risk of termination.
According to company filings from July, Native Instruments‘ CEO, Nick Williams, has been removed, along with Simon Cross, the company’s chief product and technology officer. InMusic Europe’s CEO, Richard Seymour, has seemingly taken over their responsibilities.
The closure of the Native Instruments UK office may result in the termination of roles including product manager, product designer, engineering manager, chief financial officer, VP global marketing, VP product design, senior product designer, and senior product engineer. Many of these positions involve work on Maschine, Kontakt, and Komplete.
The news first surfaced in a Reddit thread last week, which stated: “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 said it is “simplifying” its organizational and legal structure as part of Native Instruments’ integration into the company, including removing layers established under the brand’s previous private equity ownership model. InMusic added that it recognizes the impact on affected employees and is committed to supporting them through the transition, and maintained that Native Instruments remains “strategically important” to the company, with product development continuing and new hardware and software initiatives underway for 2027 and beyond.
Meanwhile, a number of new roles have appeared on InMusic’s careers page, mostly based in Rhode Island, USA, and Cambridge, UK. These positions include content development engineer, lead product manager, lead product designer, and other product-focused roles.
This latest round of layoffs 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, who said early in the conversation that the future for Native Instruments was “very exciting, very bright, and very secure.”
The situation mirrors InMusic’s actions following its acquisition of Moog Music in June 2023. In its original statement announcing that deal — no longer accessible on Moog’s website — InMusic said the acquisition would help address ongoing challenges Moog faced as a small manufacturing business. By late September 2023, InMusic had laid off 30 employees at Moog’s historic headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina, and moved parts of its manufacturing pipeline to Taiwan. Moog has since released two major synthesizers, Muse and Messenger.
