Gaming chat platform Discord in early talks with banks about public listing
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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/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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T [email protected] shared this topic
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Well fuck. Time for a new platform.
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It's beginning to look a lot like enshitification,
Everywhere you go,
Just look at Reddit and x, they're all a mess,
With racist Nazi bigots and all the transphobes. -
Jesus fucking Christ, can I not just enjoy one thing in my life without it eventually turning adversarial?
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I guess I'll go back to matrix? I wish it was a little more polished
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Seeing how well Reddit did in its IPO, it seems that this type of closed platforms keep people captive enough not to look elsewhere and bank on it. Investment wise that seems like a buy, unfortunately.
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God fucking damnit can we just have one thing???
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Its OK when I've used it but I generally stick to text
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Every time something goes public it turns into shit. Every single time.
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This is bad news for discord users. Making it a public company means that all their data will be up for sale when the company goes under
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I've been wanting a replacement for ages now. The problem is that Discord does everything it does very well (with a few exceptions), way better than any of its competitors. It's incredibly hard to replace, because no other product really matches it in any category. Cost, ease of use, feature set, cross-app API support... Nobody else comes close; even if you paid a ton of money for premium services to replace Discord, you're still likely going to downgrade your overall experience.
I really want to see more competition in this space.
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Nooo, enshitification. I've only recently stared using it.
What do we use instead? Is Matrix the only option?
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I knew this day would come [gently pats 15 year old mumble server].
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I may have to go back to IRC, hell even running my own fucking server
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I guess it's time for TeamSpeak to make a comeback
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Oh no, its over. Discord going to become unbearable in a few years tops.
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saving this for later, thanks
