Discord: $100 Million Funding And $3.5 Billion Valuation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jul 3, 2020

Instant messaging and VoIP application company Discord announced that it has raised $100 million in funding at a $3.5 billion valuation. As the company raises this round of funding, it is expanding beyond the gaming industry. So the company is broadening its tools to enable more day-to-day communications between users. Discord now has over 100 million monthly active users who spend 4 billion minutes in conversation daily.

“Games are what brought many of you on the platform, and we’ll always be grateful for that. As time passed, a lot of you realized, and vocalized, that you simply wanted a place designed to hang out and talk in the comfort of your own communities and friends. You wanted a place to have genuine conversations and spend quality time with people, whether catching up, learning something, or sharing ideas. A place where you and your world can truly belong,” wrote Discord CEO Jason Citron and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy in a company blog post.

Some of the changes that will be made on Discord include improving the onboarding experience. And it will be increasing capacity for voice and video chat. Plus it will continue to invest in reliability and performance.

To also accommodate a broader audience, the company also recently announced plans to combat hate speech. Discord will be auditing the ways racism is spreading and new software will be developed for managing abuse.

And Discord also recently partnered with Krisp.ai to remove background noises during voice calls. In March, Discord also increased the number of people who can simultaneously view live streams from 10 to 50.

Discord generates revenue through a subscription service called Nitro. The classic plan is $4.99 per month ($49.99 per year). And there is an upgraded version of Nitro for $9.99 per month ($99.99 per year).

Including this funding round, Discord has raised over $370 million. Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer oversaw the lead investment in this round.