Proprietary free VoIP and instant messaging software is no longer for sale.
Despite the interest of four companies, including Microsoft with a ten billion dollar bid, Discord has decided to end negotiations for a resale and is now considering relaunching its IPO so that new investors inject funds into the chat platform that ousted Skype, Mumble or Teamspeak. Valued at $ 7 billion since last December, the American start-up has doubled its monthly active user base by around 140 million mainly thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, while generating $ 130 million in revenue in 2020 against nearly of $ 45 million in 2019.
In a move that could facilitate an IPO, Discord hired its first CFO, Tomasz Marcinkowski, a former Pinterest executive last month. Although Discord is not a video game company, many of its users use it to communicate with each other while playing games, and several industry-related companies went public in the past year such as Roblox, Playtika and Unity Software.
Why did Microsoft want to buy Discord?
Microsoft is looking for acquisitions that would allow it to reach more consumers. An agreement with Discord would have allowed the Redmond firm to expand its presence in social networks beyond LinkedIn and what it has developed through its Xbox video game business. Discord users say the platform offers more compelling features, like better sound, than competing chat services, including even those from Xbox and Skype, which Microsoft also owns.