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.
Can it be any more enshitified tho?
Pay $5 to send 50 messages per month. Then an additional $1 for every fifth message.
Discord is completely fine. It doesn’t break. Practically no bugs. The only annoying thing is that sometimes the shop gets a red badge but that’s it
I completely disagree with this and have been for years.
It has often had connectivity issues, big lags, higher latencies and lower bitrates than Mumble or even TeamSpeak.
It’s super bloated, they churn out useless “features” so fast that it keeps making it use more resources and makes everything slower.
Until recently, being in voice call with more than 3-4 people made all my 16 cores attempt self destruction.
It is a freemium piece of bloatware.
Disagree, it was fine when all it did was gaming parties but everything else from shitty UX, to rampant bots, to barely working functionalities. It’s so bloated it cant keep up. Also it’s proprietary, unencrypted and frankly just overall bad piece of software for anything but gaming.
I totally agree, except also for gaming.
Compared to alternatives, there are often lags and complete disruptions, latency is horrible, bitrate is a paid feature, and for large groups of voice channels (like managing a 500 player operation in Eve), features are still lacking.
Also security is a joke. In Mumble, you can manage (certificate based!) permissions on every level imaginable.
They spend their time on making silly themes and Nitro features nobody cares about.
This just hasn’t been my experience at all and with respect to bots it sounds like server run issues not a problem with discord itself.
Oh, it can get a lot worse
Discord: Hold my beer