Bonnier Capital today announced that it has acquired Elektron Music Machines AB.
The acquisition marks Bonnier Capital’s entry into the electronic music instrument sector. According to the firm, the move “reflects the firm’s continued focus on long-term ownership of businesses built around strong creative identities.”
Elektron will continue to operate independently, under its existing management team and brand. Founder Jonas Hillman and CEO Alexander Hellström, together with the broader management team, will reinvest alongside Bonnier Capital, ensuring continuity of leadership and long-term alignment.
“Elektron has built a truly distinctive position at the intersection of technology, creativity, and music culture. We are deeply impressed by the team’s craftsmanship and vision, and we see strong alignment with our long-term approach to building enduring, creative businesses in the music industry,” said Jonas Von Hedenberg, Investment Director at Bonnier Capital. “Our ambition is to support Elektron’s continued growth while preserving the unique identity that has made it so respected by artists worldwide.”
“Joining Bonnier marks an exciting new chapter for Elektron,” adds Hellström. “It gives us the support and strategic backing to keep doing what we love most — creating inspiring instruments and pushing the boundaries of sound and performance.”
For customers, partners, and the wider Elektron community, Bonner says that the day-to-day operations, product development, and existing commitments remain unchanged.
Does not smell good 🙁
as everytime a fund buys a small company…
From the Bonnier website: “Free from the limitations of a fund structure and holding periods, we do not need a set exit horizon…” In other words, their goal is to sell the company in a few years at a significant profit, not to make awesome instruments.
When a baker decides to stop and rents his bakery to another baker, it’s no surprise if the price of bread doubles or its quality deteriorates to pay for both 🙂
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise.
Was Elektron having financial trouble before this?
Unlikely. I think this was just good ol’ greed and/or a shortcut to an early retirement.
But yeah, expect products with worse quality (i.e. Moog going all plastic with messenger), shorter times between iterations (MKs), shorter lifecycles for support (2-3 years after release then product is dead/unsupported), more bugs due to rush to release and prices about the same. Check out how Moog is doing under InMusic.
People will buy it anyway.
Ask your preferred dealer how their sales are these days. If they are honest they will tell you that sales have been sparse since about 2023, after everyone had to go back to work following the “end” of the pandemic. The bigger the brand, the more exposure they have: rent for large office spaces, payroll, health care, etc. Not to mention the tarifs.
That’s it for Elektron. No biggie. They lost their spark. I look forward to seeing their wasa ship sink, now that they sold it.
End of an era. When founders leave things change. They will stay as long as their contract makes them, maybe a year. This actually could end up being a good thing as many of elektron decisions are head scratchers.
like digitech, moog, and other brands, we will see death by private equity
Fall sky
When you see the words “capital” or “equity” in a title, bend over and grab your ankles. Sometimes, that can be part of a graceful exit for a struggling company. Mostly, its the fanfare to an unlicensed ‘doctor’ who giggles giving you a colonoscopy with a bottle brush. Further motivation to stick with softsynths from people who don’t generate nearly the drama.
I’m hoping that prices will go down over time. The recent price increases made me move away from elektron.
Bonniers are right-wing ghouls who have spent fortunes buying up and strangling independent news media in Northern Europe.
If they’re sinking their tentacles into music production I’d kinda expect them to buy whatever remains of Native Instruments.
Story of Novation that kept updating the OG Circuit before selling out to Focusrite. Similar story for OG Digitakt. Those days I think, are over.
Focusrite bought novation in 2004 the Circuit didn’t come out until 2015
Thank you for the correction!
Nonsense, Focusrite bought Novation in 2004 and the OG Circuit was released in 2015.
Both Circuit Tracks and Circuit Rhythm were feature complete and didn’t need all the firmware updates to get there. The OG Circuit was never meant to be what they turned it into, thanks to the unexpected success.
Err no, Novation joined Focusrite in 2004 – a full decade before the Circuit was even released. And they didn’t “sell out”. They’ve both gone from strength to strength in that time.
They had already sold some stake in the company to another investment firm in 2016. Cenk and other left, Daniel and some others went to ASM. It hasn’t been the same Elektron for a while.
Capitalism ruins anything good.
As soon as a small company sells out it goes from “Make a living wage for me and my workers by selling cool shit that people want” to “Vacuum as much money as we can put of the public to satisfy investors. Do this in any way possible and push the tolerances of their customers to breaking point, because only growth matters, not a stable salary for the workers. Investors don’t make money if the profits / profit margins don’t increase. Bleed the company and customer base dry, and when the breaking point is reached, sell or shut down the company”.
Having worked with PE at the senior level of a company all PE cares about is profit, not the company. Sad.
goodbye Elektron, another product never to be purchased again.
First read it as Boner Capital….which would make sense considering what is about to happen.
Eventually, when quotas are not met, the team will get replaced with people who will work for a lot less……or just AI, and the brand will wither (or possibly get quickly resold before all this happens).
Ah, gotta love this world.
Never sell out guys, unless your company is literally going to fail if you don’t.
I think Elektron was doing just fine, but the pay-day was too tempting.
Uhhhhh. Could they just like…not?
RIP Elektron
As long as they were not bought by “Francisco Partners”
The day Elektron died.
Eurorack makers seem to be the last real people making electronic instruments with actual care for music.
Everything else will be made purely for profit and shareholders.
I can’t wait for it to fucking fail.
“I can’t wait for it to fucking fail.”
I don’t understand the knee-jerk hate some Synthtopia readers have towards great companies that get bought out.
If synthesists had had this neanderthal attitude towards Moog when Bob Moog sold out, we would have never had the Minimoog, the Polymoog, their excellent Eurorack lineup, the Muse, the Matriarch, the Sub37 , the Voyager line – literally some of most loved synths of all time.
People LOVE recent Oberheim & Sequential synths, so that seems to be another case where the new owners have made it possible for important synth companies not just to live on, but to thrive.
There are also plenty of examples of great companies dying, because they were not valued and did not have access to capital. Access Virus anyone?
A big difference is that none of the companies you mentioned were bought out by vulture capitalists.
Also, that later version of Moog you talk about was still ran by the man himself until he died and obviously carried on in his memory for so long due to the huge impact he made on the people who worked under him.
This is nowhere near the same situation. At all.
Bob Moog lost control of his company in 1970. He never controlled the company again. 50+ years of ‘selling out’ and some of the best synths ever.
The story of Moog from R.A. Moog, to Moog/Musonics to Moog Music a division of Norlin, to a electronics mobster to Big Briar to Bob reclaiming his trademark and recasting Big Briar as Moog Music is way more complex then you’ve related. I’ve probably missed a few twists. Bob was in control of BB, Bob did create synths as BB (Voyager!). Bob did control Moog Music (mk 2) until he died. After that things got weird.
Egon – Bob Moog sold the company in 1970, and never owned the company again. Moog mk2 was owned by Mike Adams.
Saying that Bob Moog lost control of his company in 1970, and never controlled it again is completely accurate. Tell me why I’m wrong!
My point isn’t that selling out leads to great instruments, obviously, it’s that buyouts can make it possible for brands to keep making great products, and that’s been the case for Moog since 1970.
Private equity typically seeks to acquire undervalued or distressed companies, clean them up (increasing sales and product lineups), and resell them to another buyer at a significant markup. Nothing about the process is focused on making “the most loved” products of all time. It’s a bunch of finance bros engaged in pumping and dumping.
It was a decent run for Elektron, but it’s over, especially with tariffs, ram shortages due to AI, and more. You can see these changes all over the gear landscape. Soon, it will just be mindless corporations running everything. Thank god a few boutique companies exist, like Soma and Elta, for example.
It makes the syntakt promotion from a few weeks ago make sense. Clearing inventory before the sale. Gave everyone one last good deal before everything changes.
Moog, Native Instruments, Elektron… It’s sad to see so many brands I grew up with lose their independence to the suits in one way or another. I hope at least some of the old brands survive, and new players step up that prioritize music before „growth“ and „expansion“.
Lots of doom and gloom on this thread… perhaps justified, perhaps not. This probably has more to do with the fragile state of the global economy than the company itself.
It’s not like they got bought by Blackrock or Thrive Capital. They’re keeping it Swedish and might benefit from cutting extraneous staff or moving into less expensive offices.
I expect that they will keep making quality gear for a few years at least. I hope so because they have always been one of my favorite brands.