Short answers, pulled from the story.
Discord was founded by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy. Citron created it after noticing how difficult it was for his game development team to coordinate tactics in games like Final Fantasy XIV and League of Legends using existing voice software. The goal was a chat service focused on user friendliness with minimal performance impact.
Discord has about 150 million monthly active users and 19 million weekly active servers as of recent figures. In 2021, the platform had at least 350 million registered users across web and mobile platforms.
Discord was publicly released in May 2015 under the domain name discordapp.com. Within its first year, it had been used by 11 million people.
Discord ended talks with Microsoft and chose to remain independent. Reports in March 2021 estimated Microsoft as the likely lead buyer at a value of around $10 billion. Discord subsequently launched another investment round that included Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Discord Nitro is the platform's paid subscription service, first launched in January 2017 at $4.99 a month. The current tiers include Discord Nitro Basic at $2.99 and Discord Nitro at $9.99 a month, with perks including custom emoji, larger file uploads, animated avatars, and server boost discounts.
Bloomberg News reported in mid-January 2026 that Discord had filed plans in confidence for an initial public offering, supported by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. CEO Jason Citron announced in April 2025 that he was stepping down as CEO in anticipation of taking the company public, with Humam Sakhnini, a former Activision Blizzard executive, succeeding him.