Native instruments was a software only company up to 2003. Then they expanded Traktor from purely software to also a hardware producer. They partnered with Stanton to develop Traktor Final Scratch further.
It became the software for Stanton's Final Scratch digital vinyl system (which used timecode-stamped vinyl records to control MP3s). In this partnership Stanton developed the hardware. This partnership also allowed Native Instruments to use the Final Scratch timecode functionality in their own Traktor products.
The partnership between NI and Stanton ended in 2006, NI started producing their own hardware from then.