Inside Discord: From 2015 to Now Into a $995 million business
Startup Type:
Headquarter: San Francisco, USA
Current Status: Active (private; over 150 million monthly users)
Founders: Jason Citron, Stanislav Vishnevskiy
Founded Year: 2015
Investors: Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Tencent Holdings
Funding Raised: $995 million
What Is the business model of Discord?
Free voice, video, and text chat platform initially targeted at gamers, now used by online communities; monetized via optional Nitro subscriptions
How Discord got started?
Born from Citron’s frustration with poor VoIP options for gaming—he pivoted from a failed game startup to launch Discord as a superior chat app for gamers in 2015
what growth strategy has Discord followed?
Grew organically among PC gamers through word-of-mouth for its low-latency voice chat, then expanded usage by embracing non-gaming communities and continually adding features like bots and channels
what are the top products/features of Discord
Discord app, Discord Nitro, community bot integrations
what was the biggest challenge faced by Discord?
Moderation and safety challenges as it expanded beyond gaming into diverse communities, including misuse by extremist or illegal groups requiring stricter content oversight