Discord Reportedly Exploring IPO In 2025

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Discord, the popular social chat app favored by gamers, is reportedly in early discussions with investment bankers about a potential initial public offering in 2025.

What Happened: The company, last valued at approximately $15 billion in 2021, has met with financial advisors in recent weeks to explore the possibility of going public, reported the New York Times, citing two people familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for Discord declined to confirm the reports, stating, "We understand there is a lot of interest around Discord's future plans, but we do not comment on rumors or speculation. Our focus remains on delivering the best possible experience for our users and building a strong, sustainable business."

Why It Matters: Founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord has grown into a platform with over 200 million monthly users, offering free text, voice, and video communication.

The company generates revenue through a "freemium" model, selling subscriptions for premium features rather than relying on advertising.

Source: Discord Reportedly Exploring IPO In 2025, Met Financial Advisors Recently To Explore Going Public

What are your thoughts on Discord’s possible upcoming IPO?

Back in 2021, Microsoft wanted to buy to buy Discord for $10 billion, but they weren’t able to reach a deal.
www.nytimes.com

Discord and Microsoft Said to Discuss Deal That Could Top $10 Billion (Published 2021)

An acquisition of Discord, a chat app for gamers, would buttress Microsoft’s gaming business.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
It is such a phenomenal journey for Discord. It went beyond gaming and now it is eying Wall Street. It's a very interesting future for discord.
 
lens said:
It is such a phenomenal journey for Discord. It went beyond gaming and now it is eying Wall Street. It's a very interesting future for discord.
Click to expand...
It’s nice for their company, but on the other hand, it’ll end up bad for the users that use Discord for daily chatting. Some things may end up being pay wall and the experiences will change a lot.
 
I have been using Discord since 2018, I really like it. I use it on my computer as well as phone. It it launches an IPO, I believe it will be very successful IPO launch.
 
I have a feeling they're going to lock more features behind a paywall. Maybe we'll see a decline of Discord usage and more lesser known chat clients like Revolt will grow.
 
They’re introducing more ads ahead of their IPO.
arstechnica.com

Discord heightens ad focus by introducing video ads to mobile apps in June

Discord looks for more ways to make money ahead of expected IPO.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com

Discord heightens ad focus by introducing video ads to mobile apps in June​

Discord looks for more ways to make money ahead of expected IPO.

Discord’s mobile app will have video ads starting in June, the company announced today. The initial pilot for the video ads, which Discord calls Video Quests on Mobile, will offer advertisers the ability to “showcase trailers, make impactful announcements, and highlight premium content” to users, Discord said.

Discord was a proudly ad-freeplatform until March 2024, when it introduced ads to its desktop and console apps. Those ads offer Discord users rewards for PC games if they play certain games or get people to watch a stream of their gameplay through Discord. Discord followed up with Video Quests, which let developers show Discord users video ads, like trailers and announcements of new seasons and downloadable content. Discord users see prompts for both types of ads on the bottom-left side of their screen and can choose to expand or ignore them.

Discord users can also opt out of personalized promotions and “hide an in-app promotion for a specific Quest or game you’re not interested in,” Discord said.

In June, users of Discord’s mobile apps will see Video Quest advertisements on the bottom of the screen as depicted below:

Expanding our advertising platform to mobile is an obvious, natural evolution in our strategy," Peter Sellis, Discord’s product SVP, said in a statement accompanying today’s announcement. "Our mission is to create the most authentic, player-centric advertising platform in the galaxy."
Discord’s expansion into mobile ads brings the 10-year-old company deeper down the rabbit hole of online advertising. The company, which used to rely solely on subscriptions and premium add-ons for money, previously viewed the idea of ads on Discord as intrusive.

However, Discord reportedlyisn’t profitable and is looking to go public soon. Earlier this month, The New York Timesreported that Discord could file an initial public offering "as soon as this year," citing "two people familiar with the talks." Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron told Bloomberg last year that Discord would "probably" go public eventually.

As such, it's a critical time for Discord to create new forms of revenue, even if that means embracing something that Citron has previously acknowledged is unpopular. The situation is similar to that of another social media platform, Reddit. Reddit has increased its focus on ads since going public in March 2024 and finally reaching profitability in October 2024. The company's advertising revenue grew 60 percent year over year in 2024.

In its effort to continue pleasing investors, Reddit has hinted at bringing more ads to the platform. The need for ad dollars is also part of the reason Reddit changed its API pricing, killing most third-party apps that let users access Reddit outside of its native platforms, where Reddit sells ads. Reddit's growth and evolution illustrate how advertising can quickly become more central to a social platform and potentially frustrate users.

So far, Discord’s ads have seemed minimally intrusive. But the door separating Discord users and advertisers will creak open a little more in June.
 
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