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.
Read moreMusic consolidation continues – even beyond what we might have imagined. Hal Leonard is “joining” software maker Muse Group in a “partnership” (read: merger, but with separate operations, they say). Private equity giant Francisco Partners, the same company behind the NI – Plugin Alliance – iZotope conglomerate, is providing the investment.
Make no mistake – music production is attracting investors. Just weeks after announcing it was acquiring a majority stake in Native Instruments, Francisco Partners now will create a parent company for both NI and iZotope, making two of the largest names in audio software “sister companies.”