Solid deep dive. The defensive acquisition argument is the strongest part here. Discord's social layer is basically what Apple has with iMessage but for gaming, and the timing window is closing fast with the IPO filing. I worked at a startup that got aquired right before going public and valuations jumped 40% once the IPO roadshow started. Valve waiting means paying 2-3x more or losing it to Epic/MS entirely.
Realistically, if they do finalize and end up being listed as e.g. DSCD, I don't see anyone buying them for a while. IIUC, it's not particularly common, especially for "social tech" -- I think LinkedIn is the only one that went public and then got bought, and that took 5 years and was in a very different regulatory environment.
It's also worth noting that the Bloomberg article specifically calls out that they might *not* go public; there have been rumors of Discord going public in the past (e.g. when they brought on the former CFO of Pinterest) that wound up going nowhere. It's possible they're just treating the filing as a roundabout "for sale" sign to get interested buyers to step up to the plate.
I enjoyed the article, but why did you feel the need to use AI to generate such a simple thumbnail image? IMO the environmental impact of trivial uses of AI like this is a problem when it just saves us 15 seconds in photoshop.
Solid deep dive. The defensive acquisition argument is the strongest part here. Discord's social layer is basically what Apple has with iMessage but for gaming, and the timing window is closing fast with the IPO filing. I worked at a startup that got aquired right before going public and valuations jumped 40% once the IPO roadshow started. Valve waiting means paying 2-3x more or losing it to Epic/MS entirely.
Realistically, if they do finalize and end up being listed as e.g. DSCD, I don't see anyone buying them for a while. IIUC, it's not particularly common, especially for "social tech" -- I think LinkedIn is the only one that went public and then got bought, and that took 5 years and was in a very different regulatory environment.
It's also worth noting that the Bloomberg article specifically calls out that they might *not* go public; there have been rumors of Discord going public in the past (e.g. when they brought on the former CFO of Pinterest) that wound up going nowhere. It's possible they're just treating the filing as a roundabout "for sale" sign to get interested buyers to step up to the plate.
I enjoyed the article, but why did you feel the need to use AI to generate such a simple thumbnail image? IMO the environmental impact of trivial uses of AI like this is a problem when it just saves us 15 seconds in photoshop.