To strengthen expansion, Verdane invests in Propellerhead, becoming majority shareholder

[joeyluck]

https://www.reasontalk.com/2017/04/verd ... ellerhead/

From Verdane Capital (translated to English):
http://www.verdanecapital.com/article/2338

• Propellerhead Software announced today that the company is bringing on board private equity fund Verdane Capital IX (Verdane) as a new partner. Verdane will support the company's expansion in several areas around the core product Reason, the app store-model Rack Extensions and the mobile music-making platform.
  
  Reason 9 was released in June 2016, the latest version of Propellerhead’s award-winning music production software, which helped drive record sales in 2016. The company has since released two updates for Reason supporting Ableton Live’s Link technology and further bolstered the Rack Extension platform via Reason 9.2.
  
  Propellerhead is now focusing intensively on increasing the development team and pace, strengthening the company's position in- and outside of the music industry and further developing their mobile music-making platform.
  
  “We have revolutionized the music industry several times and now we want to take the next step in our vision, to give even more people the opportunity to create more and better music,” says Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO and founder of Propellerhead. “With Verdane’s help, we will be able to reinforce our focus on developing new products for the next generation of music makers.”
  
  Verdane will become an active owner of Propellerhead. Verdane has extensive experience from driving growth in software and e-commerce companies, and will be a valuable partner as Propellerhead picks up the pace. Ernst Nathorst-Böös will continue to lead the company.
  
  “Propellerhead is a vital part of the ‘Swedish music wonder’ phenomenon and possesses some of the leading expertise in the world of digital music software and digital sound processing,” says Pål Malmros, Partner at Verdane Capital Advisors. “We are excited about further strengthening Propellerhead’s leadership position in the market.”

Also see the article from Digitial.di.se:
http://digital.di.se/artikel/verdane-ko ... pellerhead

"I will remain as CEO of the company and will be the largest minority shareholder," said Ernst Nathorst-Boos.

[EnochLight]

[mfavila]

Opinions? Is this good or bad?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[raymondh]

Very Interesting news!
Especially the fact they have become a majority shareholder.
That motivation will be way beyond the "increased R&D" pitch.
Tempting to speculate, but I guess we'll see in the fullness of time!

[joeyluck]

Opinions? Is this good or bad?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I would say good. More money driving the company.
"Propellerhead is now focusing intensively on increasing the development team and pace..."
And while Verdane is a majority shareholder, it's not like they sold the company outright and are walking away.
Ernst remains CEO and the largest minority shareholder.

[EnochLight]

What this also means is that Propellerhead will have (at least for a time) a large pool of money to draw from to get ideas going and new areas explored. Imagine if Propellerhead had such resources when they tried diving into hardware with Balance? Maybe we'd be on Balance 3.0 by now...

Or not...

But yeah, ramping up development and the frequency in which we see Reason updated is very exciting!

[dioxide]

Does anybody know what the deal is with other similar companies such as Native Instruments, Softube or Ableton? Are they privately owned or are there shareholders?

[EnochLight]

Does anybody know what the deal is with other similar companies such as Native Instruments, Softube or Ableton? Are they privately owned or are there shareholders?

To be clear, even though a company can be privately owned, it indeed can still have shareholders - it's just not traded publicly on the stock exchange.

Ableton is a public company (you can buy their stock and become an "owner" yourself). In Germany, companies such as this are known as "AG", or Aktiengesellschaft (a corporation limited by share ownership, i.e., is owned by its shareholders and may be traded on a stock market). Softube is still privately owned, as is U-He and Native Instruments.

[rudiarii]

I think it will be good...Verdane have quite a few holdings already.

[PurpleMonkeyDishes]

If they concentrate on Reason then it should be a good thing, However,

If they are now on the board and start concentrating on more stupid apps that make you seem like a hip young old indoor hat wearing baffoon who can sing on a bus while playing with his junk... then they are sunk.

Serious times....serious times

[joeyluck]

If they concentrate on Reason then it should be a good thing, However,

If they are now on the board and start concentrating on more stupid apps that make you seem like a hip young old indoor hat wearing baffoon who can sing on a bus while playing with his junk... then they are sunk.

Serious times....serious times

Not sure if you noticed, but they plan to bring Reason to iOS:

http://studio.idg.se/2.1078/1.678945/in ... -mobil-app

I think if they can concentrate their efforts across the board (with a little more on Reason desktop app), that would be good.

[kuhliloach]

This should be a win for Reason users -- more development is required. Props needs resources to compete with iOS apps like KORG Gadget, so bring in big buckets of money. Great.

[chimp_spanner]

If they make it possible for me to start a full Reason project on my iPad...I will be very, very happy. But beyond that I'm just pleased to hear PH talk so positively about updating the core app. Can't remember where I saw it but there was talk of more updates to come this year. Very good times coming for Reason I feel!

[Data_Shrine]

I think this will be good, since they mention the core software. Let's be positive !

[Exowildebeest]

http://www.verdanecapital.com/our-investors

Verdane looks solid, these aren't cowboys. And they're probably not the kind of people who interfere creatively. Basically, this means more money and commercial expertise. So I see this as good news until evidence appears that it isn't. And if Propellerheads starts doing crazy stupid mobile microtransaction crap or whatever anytime soon, then that plan was probably made long before Verdane got on board. Propellerheads might have been actively seeking investment partners over the last few years, to be able to execute a certain strategy that requires funding.

[teddymcw]

This is the best possible news imo. Ya, we'll prob see too much dev resources spent on allihoopa and other things away from core product. Yet, there will def be more time for core product and I think R9's direction indicates that they still see substantial profit in developing the core which most of us here love.

Hopefully they at least make the SDK much better / easier right away to let 3rd party devs like Panda and the lot kill it like they have been and have the biggest / most popular devs like Duda and U-He be in the ecosystem for staunch DAW competition.

[buddard]

Ya, we'll prob see too much dev resources spent on allihoopa and other things away from core product.

Allihoopa is no longer part of Propellerhead, so you probably don't have to worry about that.

[EnochLight]

http://www.verdanecapital.com/our-investors

Verdane looks solid, these aren't cowboys. And they're probably not the kind of people who interfere creatively. Basically, this means more money and commercial expertise. So I see this as good news until evidence appears that it isn't. And if Propellerheads starts doing crazy stupid mobile microtransaction crap or whatever anytime soon, then that plan was probably made long before Verdane got on board. Propellerheads might have been actively seeking investment partners over the last few years, to be able to execute a certain strategy that requires funding.

This.

[dioxide]

http://www.verdanecapital.com/our-investors

Reason. Official DAW of the Illuminati.

[Exowildebeest]

http://www.verdanecapital.com/our-investors

Reason. Official DAW of the Illuminati.

That might upset some on the conspiracy crowd.

[sumusik]

IMHO: Good (capital/resources injection), Bad (Verdane being a majority shareholder).

[tumar]

http://www.verdanecapital.com/our-investors

Reason. Official DAW of the Illuminati.

Come on! It's good news. Rotschild Banking would never put money into a bad business.

[Ostermilk]

It's just business and none of mine.

Keep coming up with the products I like and I'll stay interested.

Simples

[stratatonic]

https://www.reasontalk.com/2017/04/verd ... ellerhead/

The reason anyone invests in something, is to make money.

So how will Verdane try to make, more money than Propellerhead already has?

Subscription model?
Increase in $129 upgrade?
Doing away with the $129 cost to upgrade from ANY version, to a staggered model, where the further away you are from the most recent version, you pay incrementally a bit more each version up?

"Propellerhead is now focusing intensively on increasing the development team and pace, strengthening the company's position in- and outside of the music industry ..."

What does "outside of the music industry" mean?

.
.

[esselfortium]

https://www.reasontalk.com/2017/04/verd ... ellerhead/

The reason anyone invests in something, is to make money.

So how will Verdane try to make, more money than Propellerhead already has?

Hopefully, by making it possible for Propellerhead to develop new products and services that were financially impossible before. I'm a little nervous about what might happen, too, but good things might come from this. I hope!