Discord, a popular social media company for gamers, signed deals with Microsoft for a $10 billion transaction based on briefings.
The negotiations were preliminary and no deal was imminent, said one of the persons who refused to be recognized because the debates were trustworthy. The conference was held because the pandemic boomed in video gaming and Microsoft, one of the most valuable technology businesses worldwide, supported its gaming business.
In recent years, several Microsoft acquisitions have focussed on online communities, including LinkedIn purchases, GitHub, and the gaming developer that Minecraft has developed. Microsoft had conversations last summer to purchase a video app from TikTok in a blockbuster purchase; the discussions later collapsed. In September, the parent company of several huge game studios, ZeniMax Media, was acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. Discord has become extremely influential in the pandemic, as people chat with each other while playing gameplays. It counts over 100 million monthly activated users.
A different person knowing about the subject has been talking to other followers over the years, the San Francisco-based business, which has raised close to 600 million dollars in funding since 2014.
The private sector, valued in December by investors at $7 billion, is also an applicant for public access. This month, Discord hired its first CFO, a sign that it should prepare for a first public offer. Microsoft and Discord spokespersons declined to comment. VentureBeat reported earlier that Discord had conversations about the deal and Microsoft’s participation was reported by Bloomberg.
Joost van Dreunen, professor of video gaming at New York University, said that if a deal were to be concluded, Discord “would be natural to fit” with the video gaming industry of Microsoft XBOX. He said that Microsoft “constructs and purchases hardware and now stitches all together with a community layer’s connective tissue.”
Microsoft said it likes people to play games at home or on the go on their phones on its Xbox consoles. In its gambling business in the last three months of 2020, it first generated $5 billion in revenues, after the new Xbox consoles were released.
About Discord
Discord was launched as a platform for video game players to chat and hang out while playing by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, programmers and entrepreneurs. The mainstream focus of the rally was the far right, that organized the 2017 Discord rally in Charlottesville, Va, with the white supremacist.
Since then, Discord has imposed tighter guidelines on content restraint and prohibited the right-wing communities. The app, which lets you build private servers—essentially small communities—functions with audio, text, and video chat features.
Last year, Discord unveiled plans to spread across online groups of all types to daily use beyond games. It was used for activities such as college lectures and events such as the Black Lives Matter demonstration.
One person said that last year the firm had gone over $100 million in sales. Discord gets money by offering premium service subscriptions.
