Microsoft is reportedly in the final stages of $ 10 billion acquisition negotiations with Discord, a gaming-oriented community chat platform, according to unidentified “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to Bloomberg.
Epic Games and Amazon have also been involved in acquisition negotiations previously, according to Bloomberg sources. VentureBeat also reported this week that Discord is exploring “multi-part” put options.
First launched in 2015, Discord allows individual users to create public or private servers that allow members to chat with others on that server through text, images, voice and live video streaming. The service now has 6.7 million of these servers, which serve as centralized communication centers for everything from official news and discussions from game publishers and organizing multiplayer matches between small groups of friends to a chaotic meeting place for people who bet in the stock market – and everything in between.
Discord reportedly has more than 140 million monthly users and 300 million registered accounts. In December, the company raised $ 140 million in an implicit valuation of $ 7 billion, according to TechCrunch, more than doubling its valuation in less than a year.
The Wall Street Journal estimates that the company raised about $ 130 million in 2020, mainly from sales of a $ 100 / year premium service called Nitro. In 2018, Discord also began offering direct game sales through the platform, hurting competitors like Steam and the Epic Games Store, offering developers 90% of revenue. In 2019, the company ended a separate offer that provided Nitro subscribers with free access to around 100 games, citing low usage.
Microsoft is less than a year from the closure of Mixer, its heavily promoted gaming-focused live streaming platform, which included a $ 20 million exclusive deal with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Last year, Microsoft was also in talks to acquire the social video network TikTok, when it looked like the Chinese-owned service would be forced to sell its American arm to an American company.
Microsoft also has Skype, which many players used for complementary communications within game groups before Discord became the standard. And the technology conglomerate is leaving the completion of its $ 7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda, which will include a series of games exclusive to Microsoft platforms.