MICROSOFT DISCORD DEAL

According to Bloomberg and The New York Times, Microsoft is considering buying Discord,

a voice-chat and messaging app that has grown in popularity during the pandemic, for more

than $10 billion.

According to people familiar with the situation, Discord has held discussions with Microsoft

and other prospective buyers, but no deal is imminent.

One source told GamesBeat, "I know they are in active talks with a select few parties." "The

the market is in a position where they might command tens of billions of dollars."

According to one source, Discord is more likely to go public than sell itself, according to

Bloomberg.

The reports of a potential acquisition come just a month after Tomasz Marcinkowski, a

former Pinterest executive, was hired as Discord's first-ever chief financial officer.

Discord raised $100 million in a fundraising round in June, and investors estimated the app

at $7 billion in December, according to The New York Times.

Bloomberg and The New York Times reached out to Microsoft and Discord for comment, but

both companies refused. Insider reached out to both firms for comment, but neither

responded right away.

Discord, which allows users to chat in audio, video, and text on Mac, PC, iPhone, and

Android devices, first released in 2015 as a way for gamers to communicate while playing,

but has since expanded to a wider audience.

It has grown in popularity as more people worked, played games, and socialized online

during the pandemic, and it now claims to have over 140 million active monthly users.

The app is free, but for $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, users can upgrade to Discord Nitro,

which includes improved video quality, server boosting, a higher upload limit, improved

quality live-streaming, and a personalized Discord tag.

The deal placed all of Bethesda's game studios under the Xbox Studios umbrella, including

blockbuster franchises like "Doom," "The Elder Scrolls," and "Fallout."

Microsoft has been attempting to acquire additional social media sites to complement its

$26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016. It said last summer that it was in talks with

ByteDance to buy TikTok's US operations, and it also reportedly tried to buy Pinterest, the

$51 billion photo-sharing app, which would have been Microsoft's largest deal to date.

TECHNOLOGY