Microsoft’s acquisition of Discord failed

The takeover talks between Microsoft and Discord have ended. The popular messenger is now to go public after all.

Discord breaks off negotiations

In the initial takeover talks between Discord and Microsoft, things didn’t look bad at all. For example, negotiations between the two companies began more than a month ago. Microsoft offered 10 billion US dollars for the messenger and one could have thought that this would be something. But now it looks like Discord wants to go public. This plan was already on the table before the talks. The takeover talks have now ended and Microsoft’s offer has been rejected. Microsoft was not the only company interested in the messenger.

According to the Wall Street Journal, there were at least three other companies that were interested in Discord. Discord also had talks with Epic Games and Amazon. For the time being, no agreement can be found between Microsoft and Discord. However, it should not be excluded that it goes back to the negotiating table at some point. The messenger is particularly popular with gamers and would now like to remain independent after all.

Microsoft in the takeover mania

A takeover of the messenger service Discord would have fit Microsoft well. Especially around the Xbox. Microsoft is already for some time to take over larger Internet platforms, so in 2016 LinkedIn and in 2018 GitHub was taken over. Several billions have flowed in the process. For the social network LinkedIn, Microsoft had paid $26 billion and for the software development platform GitHub $7.5 billion. TikTok and Pinterest have also received takeover offers from Microsoft, but these were also rejected.

Significant growth

Discord was released to the public in 2015 by developers Stan Vishnevskiy and Jason Citroën. Initially first as a platform for gamers, through which they can communicate while playing games. Particularly central, in addition to text, video and voice messages, are the server communities. In the communities, different users with the same interests can meet. Today, Discord’s target group is no longer limited to gamers.

The growth of the messenger service is clear in this regard, especially in the last year. The messenger was able to double its user numbers to about 140 million users last year. And it’s not just users that have increased, the company’s revenue has also almost tripled. Discord made a turnover of 130 million US dollars last year. However, the messenger service is not yet expected to operate profitably.

In order to prepare for Discord’s IPO, the messenger service hired its first finance director in March. The new Finance Director Thomas Marcinkowski was able to achieve significant growth at Pinterest over the past five years and went public with Pinterest back in April 2019. The new finance director is now expected to do the same at Discord.