Initial public offerings or IPOs are known as a great way for investors to make a big profit in a relatively short time. On average, they can bring investors 40% returns in the first 3 months. Once the initial funding stages are out of the way, IPOs can be a great way for companies to sell their shares on the open market and raise more capital to continue their growth. Whether or not you use this platform yourself, if you’re into new tech stocks you might have wondered, “is Discord publicly traded?” Read on to find out everything about the upcoming Discord stock IPO.
Discord History
Discord is a digital platform for instant messaging, voice calls, streaming, and media exchange. The company was founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, both of whom had founded similar social gaming platforms.
Citron sold his previous company OpenFeint for $104 million and in 2012 founded Hammer & Chisel, a game development studio that released one game but didn’t become successful. During the development process, Citron noticed how hard it was to communicate with his team while playing, and Discord was created to make the process more streamlined and user friendly.
Discord is targeted at gamers and is very popular among the younger generation. The communication here happens using private chats or communities or “servers.” The servers are not just for streaming but for meeting people, therefore Discord is often used as a social network. People can join other people’s servers according to interests but only with an invitation.
Thus, Hammer & Chisel received additional funding and launched the platform in 2015. Their first success was when the platform was picked up by streamers playing Diablo and World of Warcraft.
Discord raised another $20 million in a funding round in January 2016, then $150 million in December 2018, and announced a valuation of $2 billion.
In August 2021, the company reported $130 million in revenues for 2020, three times more than the year before.
In 2021, Discord turned down a $10 billion acquisition deal from Microsoft, as well as bids from Twitter and Amazon, and decided to launch an initial public offering and become a public company.
In September last year, Discord had a funding round that raised $500, giving the company a valuation of $15 billion.
That’s why everyone is asking the question, “when is Discord going public?”
Read on to find out the Discord IPO date and price, and other key info.
Discord Public Listing Key Data and IPO Date
Discord IPO Date: 2022
Ticker: N/A
Exchange: Nasdaq
IPO stock price: N/A
Valuation at IPO: $15 billion
Market cap: N/A
CEO: Jason Citron
Category: Social Media
Listing method: traditional IPO
Discord is very likely to file its IPO on Nasdaq like all tech companies do in 99% of cases. We don’t know anything specific about their IPO date, suggested stock price or stock symbol, as private companies don’t have to disclose any information about their upcoming IPO. Check back to this page to find out all the key information when it becomes available.
A company of their size is likely to launch a traditional IPO instead of doing it via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). This is a way to launch an IPO by merging with a blank-check company, which makes the IPO process cheaper and quicker.
We saw a boom of SPAC IPOs in 2020-2021. However, many of these turned out to be flops. SPACs have many downsides, at least the speculative way in which they were used in the last 2 years.
CEO and co-founder Jason Citron, who owns a stake in Discord and other investments, has an estimated net worth of $800 million.
So What About Investing Now?
Even though there are good reasons to believe Discord will go public in 2022, the Discord IPO date remains open. But as soon as the Discord IPO date is announced, it may be a good idea to get ready to jump on board, as a company like this is not only likely to bring good early returns, they are very likely to also be a great long-term investment.
Of course we have to keep in mind that a recession may be coming, which may wipe out many overblown stocks, but Discord is an online service. It only got stronger in the pandemic and has been growing from strength to strength ever since.
Discord has a strong niche and isn’t planning to go anywhere soon. As of 2021, the app has over 150 million monthly active users and is available on all major platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and others.
The company’s partnerships with large gaming players like Microsoft and Sony, means the platform is very likely to retain its ground in the gaming market. However, in 2020 Discord reported that 70% of its users were using the platform for other purposes, like virtual classes, groups, and conventions.
Discord’s $130 million revenue, as reported in 2020, comes from its paid subscriptions, server boosting, and fees from game sales.
Check out our IPO section to look at other scheduled IPOs. If you want to find companies that match your interests, investment goals and portfolio, try Gainy for some great IPO investment ideas, as well as established blue-chip companies and a variety of other assets.
FAQ
When is the Discord IPO date?
It’s too early to say, but Discord appears to be getting ready for an IPO and Discord stock IPO date should be sometime in 2022.
Is Discord a public company?
No, although the Discord IPO is planned for this year. When a company launches an IPO (initial public offering), they become a public company whose shares are traded openly on the stock exchange. When that happens, we’ll find out the Discord IPO price.