Chat platform Discord is apparently in negotiations with Microsoft over a potential sale.
That's according to The Wall Street Journal, which says that the two firms are in "advanced" talks and that a deal could be completed in April. Word that Discord was up for sale broke earlier in the week, with Microsoft named as one of the parties apparently interested in buying the chat platform. The firm might also be interested in going public.
Discord is reportedly valued at over $10 billion, an increase on the $7 billion valuation that the company had at the end of 2020 which itself was double the valuation it boasted just six months earlier in June of last year.
Though it started as a games-focused app, Discord is looking to expand beyond games. This follows an attempt to turn itself into something of a games hub where developers and publishers could sell their releases to consumers and keep 90 per cent of revenue. In 2019, the firm decided to drop the storefront service, instead allowing companies to sell directly to their audience.
The company saw a huge increase in revenue and users in 2020 thanks to - what else? - the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Discord reportedly saw revenue triple during this period.
News that Microsoft could be buying Discord comes shortly after its purchase of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media for a whopping $7.5 billion. The firm announced it was making this acquisition in September, with the deal being given the nod on both sides of the Atlantic at the start of March.
Discord's $10 billion price tag is definitely steep, but it's in-line with the money that Microsoft paid for Skype back in 2011. The $8.5 billion that the Big M paid for the communications platform ten years ago is around $9.9 billion in today's money.
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