What is Discord’s stock price, and are they publicly traded? Investors cannot purchase shares of Discord because they are a private company. Their competitor such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is a tech stock that is publicly traded. Many sources and company movements are pointing to a Discord IPO in the next 12 months.
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Table of Contents
Discord Introduction (No Stock Symbol)
Discord allows its users to communicate by video, chat, or text. The live voice chat feature is their bread and butter and can be integrated into a variety of contexts. It is very popular in the streaming community, especially for gamers. It also reaches a variety of other public and private communities. Discord built countless communities where people can be themselves and participate in what they love. We will take a look at the practical and financial aspects of Discord throughout the article.
What is Discord?
Discord is an application where anyone can interact with friends or strangers. In 2015, the company began its operations.
It was created for various gaming communities to connect with each other. Gamers were able to communicate about strategies and play on the Discord platform.
In 2018, Xbox provided the platform support for its users. They were able to link both accounts. This boosted Discord’s credibility and began appealing to an increased number of users. Can I buy Discord stock? Nope.
Diversifying
When the pandemic hit, Discord faced a new challenge. How to accommodate non-gamers on its platform? They responded by creating private and public rooms for anyone to create a community and invite their friends.
Over the years, the company raised funds and expanded its servers and reliability. Many Facebook and WhatsApp users migrated to Discord over privacy issues. They were able to welcome them and adapt to their needs.
Today, Discord has over 150M active monthly users. A variety of communities have been created. Users can now connect with Windows, iOS, Android, PlayStation, and many more platforms.
Discord also integrated YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, and other applications. Users can share screens for many purposes. Let’s take a look at a few examples outside the video game industry.
Families use it to communicate with each other about anything. Messenger, WhatsApp, and other platforms are more popular outside the US, but Discord is slowly finding its way into their households. Only 30% of Discord users are in the US.
Next, teachers use it to communicate with their students about various class activities and news. Finally, tutors also found a way to reach an audience and teach any subject imaginable. Can I buy Discord stock?
Discord Stock IPO
Many public companies tried to acquire Discord due to its increasing popularity. Earlier this year, Microsoft offered $12B for the company. They are currently expanding their Metaverse and video games sectors and Discord would have been a great addition.
Amazon bought Twitch, Facebook bought WhatsApp and Instagram, and Google bought YouTube. Microsoft is also trying to buy a social media platform to integrate its technology even further.
Amazon, Twitter and Epic Games also made offers. However, Discord refused all their offers. Furthermore, they keep receiving more funding. Currently, the company is valued at $15B. Lastly, Discord has been hiring top-level executives. All these clues are pointing to an IPO in the near future. Many are speculating it will happen this year, but there isn’t any proof or application with the SEC yet. Can I buy Discord stock?
Can I Buy Discord Stock Competitors?
Discord doesn’t have many direct competitors. Their main audience is gamers and they are slowly expanding into other spheres. One of their competitors is Slack, but they are focused primarily on business clients.
Their platform is very similar to Discord, but focused on a different audience. They also have far fewer monthly users than Discord.
Skype and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are also direct competitors with many more years in the game. It’s no wonder Microsoft tried to buy Discord.
How Does Discord Make Money?
This is the most important part of a business. How does Discord generate revenues? The platform is free. However, the platform has 2 paid plans.
The first, Nitro is offered for $9.99 or $99.99 yearly. Users have access to enhanced features and improved system capabilities.
The second, Nitro Classic, is a cheaper option that offers some of the perks for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly.
Some of the features include a personalized profile, custom emojis, server boosts, uploading files up to 100MB, live streaming, screen sharing, and HD videos. Everything to incentivize its users to pay for an enhanced service.
Does Discord have any other revenue streams? Absolutely. They sell merchandise and games on their platform. Unfortunately, the breakdown of every revenue stream isn’t available since Discord isn’t public. Hence, some data on the company isn’t available to the public yet. We have revenue estimates over the last 5 years.
2016: $5M
2017: $10M
2018: $30M
2019: $45M
2020: $130M
As we can see, revenues were increasing YoY by at least 100%. With the pandemic, that number skyrocketed to almost 300%. They are not yet profitable, which is normal for companies in the same sector at the same stage of growth. Discord is attempting to reach beyond the video game chatroom community to increase revenues. What sectors can they reach in the upcoming years?
sn’t have many direct competitors. Their main audience is gamers and they are slowly expanding into other spheres. One of their competitors is Slack, but they are focused primarily on business clients.
Their platform is very similar to Discord, but focused on a different audience. They also have far fewer monthly users than Discord.
Skype and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are also direct competitors with many more years in the game. It’s no wonder Microsoft tried to buy Discord.
What’s Next for Discord?
Discord has a lot of work left to do before becoming a successful company. They have to diversify their model while keeping the appeal for their base group, gamers.
Can I buy Discord stock? Not as of yet. But maybe in the future. However, they are making moves.
Partnerships with major tech giants are a step in the right direction. In 2021, the platform made 2 significant acquisitions.
Acquisitions
The first, Ubiquity6 is an augmented reality start-up. Their goal is to connect people through shared experiences. Discord is trying to bring people together socially. By teaming up, I am assuming their hopes are to bring games and social interactions together.
Their second acquisition is Sentropy. Gamers tend to use foul language and Discord is trying to prevent thirteen-year-olds from further angering their parents. Sentropy is an AI-powered software designed to detect and remove online posts designed towards harassment or hate.
I think it’s a good feature for the younger and family audiences, but keeping the chat R-rated is essential for anyone of age. Can I buy Discord stock? Not yet but maybe these acquisitions can help it go public.
Potential Future Features and Acquisitions
How can Discord get better? They need to capitalize on their live voice chat feature. To begin with, they can use Instagram’s influencer model. We’ll keep to the gamer example. Top streamers can receive branded content and Discord receives a cut from their proceeds.
The same streamers can start charging their users access to their server and Discord can in turn take a percentage of their revenues. Think OnlyFans meet video games. They can also use Roblox‘ (NYSE: RBLX) Metaverse model, where they can host online video games competitions and users can pay a fee to attend the event as if they were there.
What else can Discord do? They must work on their video game segment and optimize its features. Developers can integrate Discord’s features into their products and sell them on the platform. Discord gets a percentage of all the sales.
The platform can also acquire or develop a team to build its gaming services. We are always striving to find the next game or new ways to interact with our friends. Capitalizing on this is essential.
Discord Stock Final Thoughts
To conclude, Discord isn’t public yet. The company is getting plenty of interest from Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech giants, but to no avail. Since the company isn’t a tech giant, they are untouched by many restrictions hitting FAANG.
If Discord does go public in the next 12 months, they still have a lot of work to do. They must grow from a simple video game chat company. They have the tools and the money to build unless they go the easy way out and get acquired by the big guns. Time will tell.
