Arctos Private Equity Partner bought a 28% share of Elektron in 2016 with the option to own 47% 2017.
I can’t seem to find the actually amounts of money invested … being private equity and all.
However, the LA office employs 5 and generates $250k a year. Not sure how the accounting is done in terms of USA merchandise sales, but that’s not a lot.
Hmm.
The founders definitely took a well earned payday. Well earned, indeed.
Thing is, once you get outside investors involved, and especially “barbarians at the gate” types, sometimes the mission becomes misaligned. One owner is committed to the vision, another to profit. This happened at LL Bean when I worked for them. They have sorted it out now but it took some time.
It looks like the infusion of cash allowed them to do some things that they may have been wanting to do, but were too poor to implement. They needed a cash infusion. Or perhaps just liquidity. Who knows. I can’t find the details.
I think the MKII line is fabulous. I own the OT2 and it is some beautiful kit. Much much better experience than the MKI - totally classed up the line.
I know a lot of people feel it wasn’t much of an upgrade overall but the new boxes are in a whole other class.
With all of this said, if all of their USA sales are included in that $250k, Elektronauts are a very small crowd.
Once you grasp “Elektron”, there isn’t any turning back.
They should feel the same passion for their customers. Anyone who buys an Elektron and sticks with it, is fairly unique.
I called Daking Audio one afternoon to find out about the differences between the early run micpre/EQ and the more recent models. I actually got Geoff on the phone and we got into a 3 hour conversation about a small format summing mixer. Totally won me over. I will always own my Dakings. I feel a loyalty.