You might have asked yourself who founded Discord and who currently owns the company. We will explore the story of Discord’s ownership in this article.
We cannot know who the owner is with certainty because information on this topic is private.
However, by exploring Discord’s funding rounds and looking at its founders, we might at least get some idea of who the majority shareholder is.
Let’s plunge right in.
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Jason Citron
The origins of Discord started with Jason Citron after he created OpenFeint, a similar social platform for gamers that was later sold to GREE. After OpenFeint’s sale in 2012, Jason Citron founded a game development company called Hammer & Chisel, Inc.
Within a couple of years, Hammer & Chisel, Inc. abandoned the idea of developing games and redirected their resources to Discord, which was unveiled to the public in 2015. Hammer & Chisel, Inc. is now known as Discord Inc.
Jason Citron is thus the creator of Discord and its present CEO. He likely still has a percentage of shares of Discord.
Stanislav Vishnevskiy
Jason Citron was not alone on his journey of founding Discord Inc. Stan Vishnevskiy was his co-founder and is also Discord’s current CTO.
Jason and Stan working together have been instrumental in Discord’s achievements.
Unfortunately, there is no publicly accessible information on how many Discord shares Stan owns. However, as a co-founder, it’s safe to assume that he still has a large percentage.
Lead Investors
To achieve its level of success so swiftly, Discord has undergone multiple financing rounds over the years, with each round accumulating millions and aiding Discord in attaining an organizational valuation of over $15 billion.
With each of these investments, the investors can acquire a substantial (or minor) share of ownership over Discord.
Here are all the investors leading those funding rounds:
- Dragoneer Investment Group – Lead investors of the September 16, 2021 Series H funding round. Dragoneer Investment Group, along with several other investors, raised as much as $500 million.
- Sony Interactive Entertainment – $3.3 million was raised during the secondary market funding round in 2021 with Sony as a lead investor.
- Greenoaks – Lead investor for a $100 million Series H funding round in 2020 and one in 2018 with $150 million funding.
- Index Ventures – Raised over $150 million as lead investors in two different funding rounds. One in 2017 and another in 2020.
- Greylock – Led one of the earliest funding rounds for Discord in 2016 together with Spark Capital.
- Spark Capital – Partnered with Greylock as a lead investor for the 2016 $20 million funding round.
Here’s a video of what Jason Citron had to say about the $500 million funding round.
Other Investors
Naturally, investment cycles are backed by multiple investors. These extra investors also receive a part of Discord’s ownership.
Here is a list of all of them:
- Franklin Templeton Investments, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Coatue, Baillie Gifford, and Sony Interactive Entertainment – All part of the 2021 funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group.
- Mindrock Capital – Part of the funding round under Sony’s lead.
- Tencent – Part of two different funding rounds.
- Technology Opportunity Partners, FirstMark, Institutional Venture Partners – Investors for the 2018 funding round with Greenoaks as lead investors.
- Benchmark – Invested in multiple funding rounds.
- Specialized Types and YouWeb – Investors for the Greylock/Spark Capital funding round.
Conclusion
As you can see, Discord has been through a lot of funding rounds. However, most of the information regarding the company’s ownership is private.
It could be that some of the lead investors, such as Dragoneer Investment Group, have become Discord’s majority shareholders. However, it is equally possible that the company’s founders have retained ownership.
