Discord is going public

Discord, the chat platform where millions of nerds gather to talk about their special interests, has privately filed for an IPO.

According to Bloomberg, the company has been working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co. for nearly a year. Its confidential filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly pinpoints this March as the date for Discord stock to go live on the NASDAQ.

Discord neither confirmed nor denied. A spokesperson told Bloomberg the platform is focused on “delivering the best possible experience for users and building a strong, sustainable business.”

Let’s be real, though: these days, when you’ve raised $1 billion and are still a private company, taking the next step to “building a strong, sustainable business” probably involves getting shareholders. Especially since fellow nerd gathering space Reddit has seen strong (if volatile) results since its own IPO in March 2024.

Reddit is probably the closest relative Discord has in terms of projecting how it might do. Once, Discord might’ve had cousins in platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch (all public through their tech behemoth parents Alphabet/Google, Meta, and Amazon), since it seemed intent on courting digital content creators and their communities.

In 2021, it introduced server subscriptions, where server owners could paywall access to entire servers or specific channels, and would keep 90% of the revenue they earned doing so. It also established partnerships with celebrities and creators who weren’t yet on Discord, like longtime YouTubers Colin and Samir, to get them to make servers for their audiences. And it flirted with letting creators charge for attendance to Clubhouse-style audio events.

But in 2023, it laid off several dozen people across its marketing and entertainment partnerships team–the latter of which was responsible for creator partnerships.

Since then, Discord seems to have focused much less on charming celebrities for big deals, and more on smaller transactions with the 200+ million people who use its services for private peer-to-peer and group chats every month. For example, over the past year, it’s significantly beefed up offerings in its digital shop, where users can buy things like icon and profile flair. We’re guessing the shop is where it intends to extract most revenue, along with subscriptions to its premium tier, Nitro. It also entered the ad business in earnest in the last 18 months, with Quests and other formats now showing real measurement data and quality results. Those initiatives and the figures they generate are exactly the kind of proof points Wall Street will be eyeing as Discord edges toward an IPO.

All this being said, we’re curious to see how a public offering goes for Discord. Our team was split: I was personally shocked to find that my modern equivalent of AOL Instant Messenger, where I spend hours jabbering with my friends about saucy fictional characters, is becoming a public company that intends to make money. Our Senior Editor Sam Gutelle, on the other hand, was merely surprised Discord didn’t try to take things public back during the COVID boom.

However things go, we’ll probably be buying a few shares come March. Just for fun.