Gaming chat platform Discord in early talks with banks about public listing
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you were right
You can customize all that with your own color scheme you get to chose. Which is kinda cool
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https://archive.is/2025.03.06-011758/https://www.ft.com/content/4ab9efe7-36bc-44ff-b2cd-06eb2c38203a
::: spoiler Tap for article
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/TechCrunchDiscord 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.
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I hate that everyone uses discord. Why can't we use IRC which is obviously better and uses a tiny fraction of the system resources that discord uses?
My 4GBs agree. I literally cannot use discord. It takes ridiculous amounts of resource because you are meant to goddamn live in it, not just chat.
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Given we're talking about a Discord replacement and you say voice and video are still being worked on I'd say it's not ready to replace Discord smh
Where did that I say that it was though? I posted it as an alternative. Not once did I say or even hint that it was ready... You're going to great lengths to put words in my mouth on a public forum where anyone can see what's been written. It's very bizarre.
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https://archive.is/2025.03.06-011758/https://www.ft.com/content/4ab9efe7-36bc-44ff-b2cd-06eb2c38203a
::: spoiler Tap for article
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/TechCrunchDiscord 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.
:::Reminder: Matrix is open source and federated
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There goes the neighborhood.
And all of your data that they've collected over the years.
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It was nice while it lasted.
Back to Ventrillo I guess...
Did I Mumble?
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I hate discord so much
My people. I hate it as well.
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The enshittification has finally struck the English language
I blame dyslexia in combination with english not being my first language
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I kinda want discord to get shitter. It might eventually get to a point it pushes more people to using IRC instead.
man of culture, but it kinda lacks features xD
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Jesus fucking Christ, can I not just enjoy one thing in my life without it eventually turning adversarial?
Look for the companies that lead by example. Valve comes to mind. But there’s small businesses out there that do as well.
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I hate that everyone uses discord. Why can't we use IRC which is obviously better and uses a tiny fraction of the system resources that discord uses?
“Obviously better” this isn’t obvious to me at all. Just because you don’t use the many features it offers doesn’t mean other people don’t.
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Information that cant be indexed by a search engine is completely worthless to anyone looking for answers. It might aswell not be there.
It's still information. I agree that it should be available publically, but information available to few is still more than information available to none. I agree that you shouldn't have to join a Discord server to get that information, but eliminating it entirely so that not even those who do join can access it doesn't help anybody. It would only hurt a few, but a few is still more than zero.
It's an issue of culture, so simply eliminating one repository doesn't fix anything. They'd find some other messaging service to congregate on.
That's not to say Discord are saints and there is nothing wrong with either their business or their platform. That is a separate issue I think we all agree on.
My point is strictly about the hypothetical deletion of Discord over the drift towards opaque information silos: It won't help.
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It would probably take a lot of information to its grave, but the more known "servers" would probably get crawled by archive teams.
Also - assuming Discord wouldn't be replaced by something equally closed off from easy public access - all new information would be easier to access.
When Discord started, they marketed it primarily as a voice chat software for gaming. I remember them marketing it as "superior audio quality to TeamSpeak" or similar wording (which by the way wasn't the case). It obviously has chat, video chat and screen sharing conveniently built in which TeamSpeak is only starting to add now in 2025 with the TS6 beta (they seem kind of lost atm).
I always preferred the decentralized nature of TeamSpeak and Mumble though and at least from my own experience, TS tends to work better with fewer connection issues and better autogain and voice leveling.
I don't like the fact that most people happily gave up decentralized voice chat for a centralized alternative and we still use TeamSpeak in most of my circles to this day.
assuming Discord wouldn't be replaced by something equally closed off from easy public access
That's what I mean by issue of culture. I don't think the habit of gathering on discord-like services to quickly exchange info will change, and if the explosion of bsky is anything to go by, people will just find the next shiny, pretty and well-funded platform that totally definitely won't enshittify somewhere down the line to pay back their venture capital investors.
We'd be cutting the weed without pulling the root.
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Good, that will teach people to use such a shit platform to store "important" information. I hope tons of apps and programs and games crash and burn with it so the lesson sticks.
They probably don't intentionally use it to store information so much as quickly and conveniently exchange answers and questions. Forums have evidently proven inadequate for that purpose, so unless people find a better solution and make it stick, the lesson sure won't.
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looks like me and the boys are going back to teamspeak
Catch me firing up Mumble again
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Where did that I say that it was though? I posted it as an alternative. Not once did I say or even hint that it was ready... You're going to great lengths to put words in my mouth on a public forum where anyone can see what's been written. It's very bizarre.
Where did I say you had said it was ready? I answered your question on what "ready" was in the context. Talk about putting words in people's mouths..
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It's still information. I agree that it should be available publically, but information available to few is still more than information available to none. I agree that you shouldn't have to join a Discord server to get that information, but eliminating it entirely so that not even those who do join can access it doesn't help anybody. It would only hurt a few, but a few is still more than zero.
It's an issue of culture, so simply eliminating one repository doesn't fix anything. They'd find some other messaging service to congregate on.
That's not to say Discord are saints and there is nothing wrong with either their business or their platform. That is a separate issue I think we all agree on.
My point is strictly about the hypothetical deletion of Discord over the drift towards opaque information silos: It won't help.
information available to few is still more than information available to none
If discord didnt exist, that information would just be elsewhere like proper forums, it doesnt disappear magically.
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Too many startups go for VC money when they shouldn't. It's a cancer.
If you've managed to bootstrap it, or get some non-vc money, things are growing and doing well, maybe just try to keep growing that way. Your company is fucked the moment you take that VC money.
I agree, but I understand the temptation. It can take your company from 0 to 100 almost instantly, since you have the budget to hire social media and SEO experts to take you to that magical "viral" status. Not doing this often means toiling in obscurity and never going anywhere. If you do manage to make enough money for your whole team to quit their day jobs, then it almost certainly took longer.
Quick and easy path leads to the Dark Side.
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"But I don't want to eat the moldy cabbage on the ground outside!"
"Okay, do you have an alternative, or are you just gonna whine? Eat up!"
"We have these delicious carrots."
"I ONLY WANT CABBAGE THAT'S BEEN SITTING OUT FOR A WEEK!"
