https://archive.is/2025.03.06-011758/https://www.ft.com/content/4ab9efe7-36bc-44ff-b2cd-06eb2c38203a
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Gaming chat platform Discord in early talks with banks about public listing
US group has sought to broaden its appeal to a mass audience
Video game developer Jason Citron founded Discord in 2015 © Kimberly White/Getty Images/TechCrunch
Discord is in early talks with banks about a public listing, according to people familiar with the matter, in a sign of a possible revival in the sluggish US IPO market.
Founded in 2015 by video game developer Jason Citron, Discord offers multi-person voice, video and text-based spaces to its 200mn global monthly active users.
The San Francisco gaming chat platform was considering listing as early as 2021, according to people familiar with the matter. However, many technology companies and investors have put their IPO plans on hold due to political and market uncertainty.
That is expected to change this year as interest rates have fallen and US President Donald Trump has laid out a more tech-friendly regulatory agenda.
Discord was last valued at about $15bn in a 2021 fundraising, according to PitchBook. The company’s revived IPO plans remain subject to change, one of the people said.
“We understand there is a lot of interest around Discord’s future plans, but we do not comment on rumours or speculation,” the company said in a statement shared with the Financial Times. “Our focus remains on delivering the best possible experience for our users and building a strong, sustainable business.”
CoreWeave, an artificial intelligence cloud computing provider, filed for a New York IPO this month that would raise about $4bn and value the group at more than $35bn, which could make it the largest tech flotation of the year.
A series of valuable start-ups, including fintech groups Stripe and Chime and data platform Databricks that had been forced to stay private far longer than planned are expected to reignite plans to list their shares.
Discord initially found popularity among gamers, as well as retail trading and cryptocurrency communities, but has since sought to broaden its appeal to a mass audience.
The company has largely shunned advertising, in contrast to larger rivals such as Meta, X and Reddit, in favour of offering its users premium features for a fee.
In 2021, it attracted interest from multiple Big Tech groups, rebuffing a $12bn takeover bid from Microsoft. The recent IPO plans were first reported by The New York Times.
Matrix with cinny works well for me. If you’re turned off by element try cinny.
I’d like to extend a huge “thank you” to everyone who decided to form communities, especially around software projects, on this deliberately closed platform. Hope you enjoy getting milked dry.
Let me be the first to send a “thank you” in return to the people who always advocate for Matrix and similar open source alternatives on here without acknowledging that performance, UI and on-boarding with those are just absolutely awful compared to Discord, and that is not because performance and UI on Discord are great.
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
You think Discord is bad and enshittified now? Just fucking wait.
People need to get on Matrix or XMPP like fucking yesterday.
Matrix does not work as well as Discord does when it comes to base functions. I wanted to switch to it but I found that it wasn’t as intuitive as Discord was
Yeah, tried Matrix a few time and it is honestly just unusable, even for myself, never mind convincing other people to join it.
it wasn’t as intuitive as Discord was
How is discord more intuitive? You don’t even get a list of servers in the app
Discord intuitivel? It’s got the worst hi I’ve ever seen. Maybe I’m just old.
God a takeover from Microsoft. Talk about a way for it to become immediately uncool. This fun thing just immediately needing a live account and Xbox shit all over it.
That being said I’m still leaving, but think of how accelerated it’s endshittification would have been
Watch as Microsoft shoves copilot into the thing
Thoughts on Revolt?
They seem to be showing an Absolute refusal to implement video chat / screen sharing. Until then it’s a non starter for a lot of groups.
Seems pretty good, just waiting on the communities im in to leave discord.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
Person in Group waits on other people in Group to move.
…
Also Person “why is nobody moving?”.
More like
Person in Group: “Hey guys, there’s an open-source alternative to Discord that looks pretty good and it might be a good idea to look into it to have an option when/if Discord goes to shit”
Rest of Group: “lol, no”
They sound like terrible, stagnant company who would not be missed
Yeah… Unfortunately it will be another instance of nobody leaving because Discord is where all the people are.
What’s the rational for companies to do that ? Is Discord financially viable? With all those users, I’d assume they would have reimbursed VCs money ?
Then the owners can cash out
