Discord has ended acquisition talks with Microsoft and turned down the offer, according to reports Wall Street Journal. The messaging service wants to go public instead. The talks had started about a month ago. Microsoft is said to have offered more than $ 10 billion on Discord.
Microsoft wasn’t the only interested party. Laute Wall Street Journal At least three other companies have been interested in holding takeover talks with Discord. Previously, Discord was according to the information Bloombergs Also I spoke to Amazon and Epic Games. Even if talks with Microsoft about the 10 billion offer are over for now, a return to the negotiating table cannot be ruled out.
The discord has grown significantly in recent times
Discord doubled its monthly user numbers to around 140 million in the past year, especially as life in times of pandemic increasingly occurs online. Discord generated $ 130 million in revenue in 2020, nearly three times what it was in 2019. However, the messaging service remains unprofitable.
Last month, Discord Tomasz appointed Marcinkowski as its first CFO in what is seen as IPO preparations. Marcinkowski comes from Pinterest, where he can point to significant growth after five years as CFO. Pinterest was launched to the public in April 2019.
Messenger is for more than just games
Discord was developed by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy and released to the public in 2015. Initially, it was a platform through which players in particular communicate – not just during the game itself. Text, voice and video chats are available. Small communities are central to this, as users can join forces depending on their interests. Also Hays Online runs such a discord community. The target group is no longer limited to gaming.
The Discords acquisition would fit Microsoft’s ecosystem around Xbox consoles. The American group has long been buying successful internet offerings with large user communities. In 2016, Microsoft acquired the business network LinkedIn with more than $ 26 billion, followed in 2018 by software development platform GitHub for $ 7.5 billion.
Billions have failed takeover offers for the video app TikTok and the online bulletin board Pinterest in recent months. Among other things, Microsoft aims to bring large online communities to its Azure platform so it can collect usage data for other business areas.
(FDS)
