Discord is a popular communication platform where users can talk and hang out in many different ways. The free service offers text chats, voice calls, video conferences, and file transfers in private conversations and public group chats.
It's a vibrant community with more than 200 million monthly active users and 90 million daily active users spread across millions of servers -- the name Discord uses for its friend groups. Discord is particularly well-known in the video gaming community, but it also supports official study groups for college students and other information-sharing tasks. It's like a younger and cooler cousin to Salesforce's (CRM -0.02%) work-oriented chat service, Slack.
With millions of users, a global community of enthusiastic users, and budding monetization ambitions, it's no surprise that investors are starting to wonder what Discord is all about. So here's what you should know about investing in Discord.
Is Discord publicly traded?
Discord is not publicly traded as of May 2026. That said, the company appears interested in listing on the stock market at some point.
The Discord service is run by a corporation with a management team and a board of directors. Discord shares exist, but you can't buy them through a stock brokerage yet. Instead, most shares are held by the company's founders, and a minority have been picked up by venture capital investors.
The company has raised about $1 billion from private equity firms and gaming companies, including well-known names such as Greylock Partners, Fidelity Management, Accel Partners, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SONY -0.88%).
When will Discord IPO?
The company discussed a merger with software giant Microsoft (MSFT -0.45%) in the spring of 2021, but Discord walked away from the talks without signing a deal. Microsoft reportedly offered $12 billion for the communications start-up. The 11th funding round suggested a market value of roughly $15 billion later that year.
Discord stopped raising money in 2022 and has kept the details of the final cash injection under wraps. So the best estimate available today is $15 billion, based on 2021 numbers.
This company has been exploring various ways to go public over the years.
- In 2022, Discord began talking to banks about an alternative to an initial public offering, known as a direct listing. In this model, the company doesn't raise any money from investors; existing shareholders simply start selling their stock on the open market.
- One of its largest and most recent investors is Dragoneer, a well-known specialist in special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), or shell companies that file for an IPO and then use the proceeds to acquire a private company.
- And, of course, Discord could take the traditional IPO route. In that case, it would pocket some money when investors buy the stock on the open market. Investment banks smooth out the flow of shares and typically retain a portion of the stock.
Whatever method Discord decides to use, the company seems likely to enter the public stock market eventually. That's usually the exit strategy for venture capital investors, and Discord has dozens of those. Also, the company's leadership seems tailor-made for a public offering. For example, CFO Tomasz Marcinkowski previously led Pinterest (PINS -2.54%) to a nearly $13 billion IPO in 2019.
So, the stars are aligning for a Discord IPO. In Jan. 2026, the rumor mill suggested a traditional IPO near the end of the year. Sources cited confidential paperwork filings, not public statements.
