Francisco Partners, the private equity firm, is now exiting Muse Group amid 2026’s financial maneuvers. Muse Group is the Cyprus-based conglomerate that owns the publishing giant Hal Leonard, audio editor Audacity, notation software MuseScore and StaffPad, and the online platform Ultimate Guitar.
Make of this what you will: private equity no longer has a stake in Muse Group. In this case, PE’s role was presumably to complete the acquisition of publishing house Hal Leonard. Francisco Partners had also invested in Native Instruments before that company’s insolvency and acquisition (Disclosure: Hal Leonard published a book I edited, Keyboard Presents the Evolution of Electronic Dance Music, 2011. I should probably figure out who’s handling royalties for that, come to think of it.)
The Hal Leonard deal paired Muse Group’s notation tools and online platforms, including the free and open source MuseScore, with one of the best-known names in music publishing. So Muse Group describes today’s exit as the “successful conclusion” of Francisco Partners’ role, which coincided with that acquisition.
“Hey, but what about debt?” Well, thank you, made-up person/voice in my head. According to Muse Group, the concluding transaction was arranged by JP Morgan’s credit facilities and cash on hand. So any debt is now at that very well-known bank, the one headquartered at my former next-door-neighbor (really) JP Morgan Chase. (Totally irrelevant trivia: the headquarters of Waystar RoyCo in Succession are a combination of exterior shots of that building and WTC 7. Not in any way pertinent to this story, but you’re welcome.)
Muse Group remains in the same majority hands it was in before: founder/CEO Eugeny Naidenov, “partnering closely with Mo Chahdi as Executive Chairman and COO” and the management team.
I wouldn’t read too much into this, but it at least seems that Muse Group remains on its trajectory and successfully decouples from Francisco Partners — just as Francisco is exiting the industry. (They no longer have an investment in NI, and now NI is part of inMusic.) So that means some welcome stability at Muse Group for now, vital to people who depend on their tools. Really, the thing to watch for is what happens next. Muse Group mentions in their press release that they “will continue to partner with and acquire products that support its mission.”
And stability is especially welcome, as it’s one thing the industry does not have in abundance at the moment. The safe bet industry-wide is this: you’re likely to continue to see some realignments, refinancing, and more mergers and acquisitions, especially as the Trump-inflicted tariff situation is uncertain, AI continues to reshape this industry and the global economy, uh… okay, and wars and the environment and global economic downturns hitting purchasing power, and did I miss anything?
I think even acoustic instruments now face serious challenges with raw materials like wood.
For my part, I just look forward to someone fixing the Audacity interface, and meanwhile, I’m running both Audacity and the Tenacity fork on my machine. (I’m a weird person.)
With 400 million users, though, Muse Group is one you should keep on your radar.