The company that walked away from Microsoft is now worth double…

Discord, a chat, audio, and video application popular among the blockchain and gaming community, just earned itself a higher valuation. Microsoft was looking to purchase the company. It appeared like a natural fit given the synergy that exists between Microsoft’s Xbox and Discord’s community.  

However, as the two were having negotiations, Discord walked. Discord likely knew its value was much higher than what was being offered.  What’s interesting is the investors that took part in the financing round.  

Dragoneer Investment Group was the lead investor. This is a late-stage investor that invested in companies like Robinhood, Snowflake, UiPath, Snap, Alibaba, Spotify, DoorDash, Roblox, Airbnb, and Slack, among other big names. Its focus is on getting into big names before an initial public offering (IPO) This tells us Discord is likely on a clear path toward its own IPO. 

And Discord has a unique business model for its chat application. It doesn’t try to drive revenue by mining its users’ data. Instead, it relies on a subscription model. It has a few different tiers available from $4.99 to $9.99 per month.  Updated Crypto “Buy Up To” Recommendation The platform is also highly secure with good features for video streaming. 

I consider it a standout in the industry. And I hope they stay true to their roots and don’t go the advertising route.  Discord will likely continue to see growth in terms of its valuation with its 150 million users. That number isn’t much different from Snapchat’s when that social media application went public in 2017. SNAP has gone on to have a market cap of more than $115 billion. 

That means Discord is likely headed on a similar valuation path as long as it doesn’t get acquired by somebody like Microsoft…