What started as a niche chat platform for gamers has since evolved into a multibillion-dollar company.
Messaging app Discord recently raised $500 million in a new financing round led by Dragoneer Investment Group. Baillie Gifford & Co., Coatue Management, Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Franklin Templeton also participated in a round.
The news was first reported by Bloomberg, claiming that the new investment reportedly put Discord at a $15 billion valuation. When Built In reached out to Discord for confirmation, a Discord spokesperson confirmed the new funding, but declined to confirm the valuation.
If this new valuation is accurate, it would represent a more than 2x increase from Discord’s valuation in December 2020, and over 4x what the company was worth in July 2020. That’s a significant jump in valuation for a company that’s been around since 2015.
Discord, which has often been referred to as the Slack for gamers, has built a messaging platform that allows people to create public and private groups, and custom topic discussions within those groups. It also allows its users to chat through text, audio and video. In recent years, the company has seen an increase in popularity as it looks to expand beyond the world of video games.
Discord now has 150 million active monthly users, 19 million active servers per week and 4 billion minutes worth of conversation on its platform every day. According to a conversation Bloomberg had with Discord CEO and co-founder Jason Citron, Discord plans to use this new funding to invest in new features and tools, as well as continue to grow its team. The company is actively hiring for dozens of open jobs, with roles across engineering, data science, customer experience, marketing, product and more.
