Image Line (Waterland investment group), the makers of FL Studio, have acquired the French sample library and plugin developer UVI.
In recent years we have seen increased influence from investment firms in the MI space. Among others, Soundwide with Native Instruments, iZotope Plugin Alliance… or Image Line belonging to the Waterland Investment Group.
The latter has recently grown. It was only by accident that I discovered that Image Line (Waterland) had acquired the French company UVI. The company is known to many for its excellent Falcon 2 multi-engine Synthesizer and numerous sample libraries
Image Line UVI
This takeover comes as a surprise. It was only communicated very quietly and not covered by many media websites. But there is a press release from January 24th, 2023:
Press Release
UVI, a leading software creator and content producer focused on the music and audio market, announces its acquisition by Image-Line, a software company best known for its digital audio workstation program FL Studio. Drake Star acted as the exclusive financial advisor to UVI and its shareholders on this transaction.
The new structure will benefit from high potential for growth synergies, a community of millions of active users, and a unique competitive position that would result in a complementary offering.
Jean-Bernard Celier, CEO of UVI said
“I am delighted that UVI is joining the Image-Line organisation. They have understood the development and transformation of UVI. We share the same values and have a similar corporate culture. I am confident that Image-Line will provide UVI with the expertise and resources necessary for our future growth. We would like to thank Drake Star for their support and expertise throughout the process.”
Constantin Koehncke, CEO at Image Line
“We are very pleased to welcome UVI, a company we have been following for a long time and whose products are cherished by music producers for their high quality and authenticity. We are excited to bring their instruments, effects and sound products to an even wider audience to further deliver on our mission to help music producers make and share their best music.”
UVI In The Future?
Taking over one company from another often opens up new opportunities. Especially when an investor brings in new money, allowing you to hire more people and have more development budget. The whole thing can also drift in the wrong direction where the investor wants to earn as much money as possible as quickly as possible. So to get its investment back. I have always fear when it comes to things like this
However, it will be exciting to see how UVI positions itself in the future. Whether everything stays the same or whether both companies work closely together. Like a Falcon-style synth plugin or more codes or sound content for FL-Studio. Either way, it will be good to see where the new UVI path will lead.
More information here: Image Line UVI
More info through KVR:
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=593229&sid=227f2380743b7777b616b903e9234948
Falcon vs MSoundFactory.
Can both survive within the same corporate structure?
Does Melda also belong to Image Line and the investment company? If not, yes, both can survive
Melda has indeed been bought by Image Line:
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=593291&hilit=image+line
Oh thanks for the info 🙂
I love Image-Line and UVI, but I can’t STAND Melda Productions software. It may do great work, but their installation, onboarding, and user interfaces are atrocious. I don’t know when IL acquired them, but they have their work cut out for them.
I love Melda. I find the interfaces to be simplistic and very easy to use, and I like the batch installation. Makes things easier when you have multiple computers/laptops across multiple studios.
Whatever. I wonder who will buy Spectrasonics
From what I read, Waterland Private Equity Investments employs a strategy called “buy-and-build”, “wrapping up companies in fractured sectors with attractive tailwinds”, which means buying one “platform company” (Image Line in this case), then making sequential “add-on acquisitions” to add value to the whole package.
Waterland is said to make six sequential add-on acquisitions on average.
In IL’s case, seems they added 4 “add-ons” so far, MeldaProduction, UVI, WA Production and Producer Loops.
I ain’t no businessman, but that does look a bit incomplete to me, I think they will reach the 6 average with a couple more “add-ons” before moving the whole package to another investment fund (like EMH Partners moved NI to Francisco Partners within a few years).
Neolib or commie, it is obvious those equity funds are after short term profits, none of them seek to hold an asset for more than a few years, anything about long-term goals in the press releases about those company purchases is pure bovine manure.
Whatever fusions we saw in the past – nothing positive for the customers. After iZotope came together with NI some of the iZotope products were dropped. InMusic (Akai, Airmusictech) is even worse. No product support at all anymore.
I am a big fan of UVI but don’t use FL at all. My concern is if UVI will remain with great products or it will be absorbed by Image Line