Discord, the US-based creator of a text and voice messaging tool for gamers, has raised $150m from investors including internet group Tencent at a $2.05bn valuation, TechCrunch has reported.
Greenoaks Capital led the round, which also featured fellow investment firm Technology Opportunity Partners and venture capital firms FirstMark, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Index Ventures.
Discord has built an in-game communication platform with more than 14 million daily active users. The funding will fuel the launch of a gaming store that will offer developers a 90% share of the income generated by sales, as opposed to the 70/30 split offered by market leader Steam.
The latest round took the company’s overall funding to more than $280m and comes in the wake of $50m provided by undisclosed investors in April this year at a valuation of $1.65bn.
The company’s investors also include media and entertainment group WarnerMedia (then Time Warner), which took part in an $8.2m series A round for the company in 2013 when it was still known as Hammer & Chisel.
Benchmark, IDG Capital, Accel and GC Capital Partners also contributed to the series A round, which followed a $1.1m seed round featuring Accel, IDG, Studio 9+ and General Catalyst in 2011.
Tencent joined Benchmark and Studio 9+ to invest an undisclosed sum in Discord in 2015, before Greylock led a $20m round featuring Tencent, Benchmark and YouWeb the following year.
The company subsequently raised $50m in a January 2017 round led by Index Ventures and backed by IVP, Greylock, Benchmark and Spark Capital at a $725m pre-money valuation.
