Discord

60 major milestones

Instant messaging and VoIP social platform for voice, video, text and community 'servers' used heavily by gamers and broader interest groups.

Latest Valuation
$15,000,000,000
7 Funding Rounds

Company Timeline

Years -5--1

Jason Citron sells OpenFeint for $104M (founder liquidity)

Jason Citron sold OpenFeint to GREE for $104M in cash; proceeds helped fund later ventures including Hammer & Chisel/Discord.

Year -42011

Phoenix Guild / Hammer & Chisel studio founded (origins)

Jason Citron establishes Phoenix Guild (later Hammer & Chisel), a game studio that would produce Fates Forever and later pivot into building Discord.

Year -32012

Stanislav Vishnevskiy joins Citron at Hammer & Chisel

Stanislav Vishnevskiy joins Jason Citron to work on the studio's projects; collaboration lays groundwork for Discord.

Year -22013

Years 0-4

Discord public beta opened

Discord opened a public beta (source: Zippia) as the team transitioned from game dev to communication platform.

Year 02015

Official public release of Discord

Discord was publicly released under domain discordapp.com as a voice/text chat app focused on gamers.

Year 02015

Early funding and incubator support

Hammer & Chisel (Discord) received funding/support from YouWeb's 9+ incubator, Benchmark and Tencent during early development.

Year 02015

Raised $20M funding (includes WarnerMedia/TimeWarner)

Discord announced a $20M funding round; investors included WarnerMedia (then TimeWarner).

Year 12016

3 million users reported

Hammer & Chisel reported 3 million people had used Discord; growth of ~1M per month reported earlier in 2016.

Year 12016

In-game overlay & official API launched (spring 2016)

Discord launched a PC in-game overlay and its official API to enable integrations and bots.

Year 12016

11 million users reported (July 2016)

Discord reached about 11 million users by July 2016.

Year 12016

Launched GameBridge API

Discord introduced GameBridge API allowing deeper in-game integrations for developers (Dec 2016).

Year 12016

25 million users reported (Dec 2016)

Company reported ~25 million users worldwide by December 2016.

Year 12016

Nearly 90 million users by end of 2017

Discord reported nearly 90M users by the end of 2017, with ~1.5M new users per week.

Year 22017

Introduced Discord Nitro (first paid subscription)

Discord launched Nitro (initial paid subscription tier) offering animated avatars, custom emoji use, and larger upload limits (early 2017).

Year 22017

Video calling and screen sharing (beta Aug 2017)

Video calling and screen sharing debuted in a small test group in August 2017.

Year 22017

Video calling and screen sharing rolled out to all users

By October 2017 Discord made video calls and screen sharing available to all users (DMs and group DMs).

Year 22017

Rich Presence SDK released (Dec 2017)

Discord released the Rich Presence SDK enabling games to display in-game status and allow 'join' directly from Discord.

Year 22017

PC Gamer names Discord best VoIP (May 2016 noted)

Press recognition: Tom Marks (PC Gamer) called Discord the best VoIP service a year after launch (May 2016); reflects industry acclaim.

Year 32018

Games storefront beta launched

Discord launched a curated games storefront beta and announced Nitro subscribers would get rotating free games.

Year 32018

Discord Nitro restructured; Nitro Classic introduced

Discord renamed original Nitro to Nitro Classic and launched a higher-priced Nitro tier ($9.99) including game access.

Year 32018

Raised $150M at $2B valuation (Series F)

Discord raised $150M led by Greenoaks Capital; round valued the company at about $2 billion.

Year 32018Valuation: $2,000,000,000

Started publishing biannual transparency reports (2019)

Discord began releasing transparency reports periodically and formalized its policy on under-13 users (age restriction).

Year 42019

Server Boosting launched (June 2019 reported)

Introduced Server Boosts to let communities purchase perks for servers; boosts priced monthly and Nitro subscribers receive discounts/free boosts.

Year 42019

Developer store channels & payments for publishers

Discord added the ability for developers/publishers who run servers to sell games via a dedicated store channel with Discord-managed payments.

Year 42019

Games storefront removed (March 2019 pivot)

Discord removed the digital storefront in March 2019 to focus on Nitro subscription and direct sales via developer servers.

Year 42019

Ended free-games-with-Nitro program

Discord announced it would end its free-game service (part of Nitro) in Oct 2019 due to low engagement.

Year 42019

Years 5-9

Reported $130M revenue in 2020

Discord reported $130 million in revenue for 2020, an ~188% increase year-on-year.

Year 52020

Noise suppression (Krisp) added to mobile (July 2020)

Discord integrated Krisp noise suppression tech into its mobile apps to improve voice call audio quality.

Year 52020

Backend scaling milestones (MongoDB → Cassandra → ScyllaDB)

As message volumes grew, Discord migrated from MongoDB to Cassandra at ~1B messages, then to ScyllaDB at ~1T messages (infrastructure scaling milestones).

Year 52020

Reached ~100M monthly active users (mid-2020)

Discord reported hitting roughly 100 million monthly active users by June 2020 amid pandemic-driven usage growth.

Year 52020

Raised $100M and pivoted beyond gaming

Discord announced a $100M investment and signaled a strategic shift from gaming-only to an all-purpose 'Your place to talk'.

Year 52020

Valuation surged to ~$7B then reported up to $15B by late 2021

Different reports placed Discord's valuation at about $7B (May 2021) then as high as ~$15B around Sep 2021 ahead of investment rounds.

Year 62021Valuation: $15,000,000,000

Microsoft acquisition talks reported (~$10B)

Reports surfaced that Microsoft led talks to acquire Discord at an estimated ~$10B value; talks ended in April 2021.

Year 62021Valuation: $10,000,000,000

Hired first finance chief (Tomasz Marcinkowski)

Discord hired Tomasz Marcinkowski as its first finance chief, seen as a step toward possible IPO readiness.

Year 62021

Sony strategic investment and PlayStation integration announced (May 2021)

Sony invested in Discord and announced plans to integrate parts of Discord into PlayStation Network by 2022.

Year 62021

Rebrand: logo and slogan change (May 2021)

Discord rebranded Clyde logo and changed slogan from 'your place to talk' to 'imagine a place' (backlash from users followed).

Year 62021

Secondary market transactions (July 2021)

Discord had secondary market transactions reported in July 2021 (private share sales).

Year 62021

Acquired Sentropy (July 2021)

Discord acquired Sentropy, a company focused on online moderation/artificial intelligence for safety.

Year 62021

Launched Threads (Aug 2021) and Stage Channels (May 2021 earlier)

Discord introduced Stage Channels for moderated audio events and later Threads for temporary sub-conversations.

Year 62021

Raised ~$500M further investment (Sep 2021)

Discord secured about $500M in investments in Sept 2021 amid rapid growth; company valuation estimates surged.

Year 62021Valuation: $15,000,000,000

Music bot takedowns and YouTube partnership (Sep 2021)

Following cease-and-desist actions against Groovy and Rythm bots, Discord partnered with YouTube to test 'Watch Together'.

Year 62021

Web3 mockups controversy (Nov 2021)

CEO Jason Citron posted mockups suggesting crypto/NFT integrations; community backlash forced clarification that no shipping was planned.

Year 62021

Removed discriminator and moved to handle system (May 2023 planned)

Discord replaced the four-digit discriminator system with handles in May 2023, requiring username changes and priority assignment.

Year 72022

CNIL GDPR fine announced (Nov 2022)

French data protection authority CNIL fined Discord €800,000 for GDPR violations (background activity, weak password rules).

Year 72022

Introduced AutoMod AI & server subscriptions (2022)

Discord introduced AutoMod features and launched server subscriptions to let creators charge for access/benefits.

Year 72022

Midjourney server grows to 15M members (largest known server 2023)

The Midjourney Discord server surpassed 15 million members, reported as the largest Discord server in 2023.

Year 82023

Introduced Voice Messages and Soundboard (Spring 2023)

Discord added voice messages (mobile) and Soundboard for audio clips during voice calls as part of expanded audio features.

Year 82023

Platform implicated in classified documents leak (April 2023)

Classified US documents were posted to a Minecraft Discord server; event drew major media and legal attention.

Year 82023

Media Channels launched (June 2023)

Discord launched Media Channels restricted to images and videos to improve media-first conversations.

Year 82023

Laid off ~4% of staff (Aug 2023)

Discord cut about 4% of its workforce (~40 employees) as part of a restructuring effort.

Year 82023

Mobile app revamp launched (Dec 5, 2023)

Discord released a revamped iOS/Android app with OLED dark mode optimizations, voice messages, and new icons.

Year 82023

Revenue reported and shifts (2023-2024)

Third-party sources reported revenues of $938M in 2023 and $879M in 2024 (Canvas/third‑party financial reporting), indicating revenue fluctuations and monetization shifts.

Year 92024

Laid off 17% of employees (~170 people) (Jan 2024)

Following rapid growth, Discord laid off ~17% of staff (reported ~170 employees) to improve operational efficiency.

Year 92024

Introduced advertising product 'Quests' and began ads (2024)

Discord introduced Quests and began experimenting with ad products as part of revenue diversification (reported Apr 2024 rollouts).

Year 92024

App Launcher and Activities expansion (2024)

Discord launched the App Launcher and expanded Activities with in-app purchases and embedded apps; started powering in-game chat for titles.

Year 92024

Monthly active users ~150M (2024)

Public sources reported Discord had about 150 million monthly active users and 19 million weekly active servers in 2024.

Year 92024

Reported 227M monthly active users (contrasting public figures)

Some sources reported Discord had over 227M monthly active users as of 2024 — different reporting figures exist between sources.

Year 92024

YouTube view-count loop bug on April Fools' (Apr 1, 2024)

Discord client accidentally looped an announcement video causing a temporary spike in YouTube views; YouTube later adjusted counts removing 1.3B views.

Year 92024

Years 10-14

Company size and reach (2025 reported)

Discord publicly stated serving hundreds of millions of users (company site: 200M monthly active users claim) and continued developer focus (Social SDK announced 2025).

Year 102025

Jason Citron steps down as CEO; Humam Sakhnini named CEO (Apr 2025)

Jason Citron announced stepping down to board member; Humam Sakhnini (ex-Activision Blizzard exec) became Discord CEO, prepping company for potential IPO.

Year 102025