Discord is a chat app that was originally designed for gamers, but has now gained ground in study groups, corporate environments, and for simple chats. It seems to have caught the interest of Microsoft, which may shell out a lot of money to buy Discord. According to Matthew Kanterman, market intelligence analyst at Bloomberg, Microsoft's idea is part of its plan to further expand its gaming business into software and services, likely on the Xbox.

“There is a great opportunity to group the Discord Premium Offer to the Game Pass service, to generate more subscriptions to the last 18 million reported”, he commented, confirming that the company is looking for “resources that give access to communities of engaged users”. It was this interest, in fact, that made Microsoft recently interested in TikTok and Pinterest.

Microsoft's offer is reportedly worth around $10 billion (almost R$60 billion at the current exchange rate) and is being led by Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division. He was also the one who led the recently closed deal with ZeniMax Media Inc., owner of the gaming company. Bethesda, the company Microsoft paid for $7,5 billion.

IPO

In addition to Microsoft, Discord has other options to further leverage its earnings, which exceeded US$130 million in revenue in 2020 – almost triple the amount raised in the previous year (US$45 million). The possibility of a sale is still being studied, but the decision is far from being made. In addition to Microsoft, Epic Games and Amazon would also be willing to buy Discord, according to the British website Metro Gaming.

Another option that is being studied is opening the company to the capital markets. The idea would be to follow in the footsteps of Roblox, a popular gaming platform among children in the United States. Roblox carried out its first share offering two weeks ago and was valued at $41,9 billion, with each share trading at approximately $69,50.

Discord currently has a user base of 100 million (Roblox has 164 million), and executives are keen on going public. The site Venture Beat revealed that Discord has already hired Qatalyst to evaluate possible suitors, as, in the management's assessment, it would be possible to raise much more than Roblox with the entry into the stock market and, consequently, much more than the US$ 10 billion offered by Microsoft to buy Discord.

Through which channels you reach those people, classic and out of the box. TechRadar