Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Press Play: IVP Invests in Discord

26/04/2018

By Somesh Dash and Alex Lim

Last week, Discord confirmed media reports that it recently raised a new round of growth financing, and we are pleased to announce today that IVP served as the lead investor in the financing.

It's no secret that Discord is one of the most exciting private consumer Internet companies out there today. It's our belief that Discord has a very good shot at being one of the iconic consumer companies of the next decade (and hopefully beyond!).

IVP is a leading later-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA. We have been incredibly fortunate to be early backers of several game-changing consumer Internet companies, including Coinbase, Dropbox, Snap, Supercell, and Twitter. Just as these companies transformed their respective markets, we believe Discord has the potential to transform the gaming industry. Here is why we invested:

Passion for Gaming: True greatness emerges when mission-driven founders innovate around massive market opportunities. Jason Citron, CEO of Discord, is a life-long gamer and serial entrepreneur. He has also assembled a talented team who are all truly passionate about Discord's mission of bringing people together around games. We rarely see a team so dedicated, focused, and driven to change the market they serve. When we do find them, we focus our efforts on how to help them unlock their ultimate potential.

Users

Discord: Discord's voice, video, and text chat platform is built for the specific needs of gamers. Discord's easy-to-use core product is 100% free and jam-packed with features like crystal-clear voice chat, robust security, screen sharing, game integrations, and sweet tunes. Users love the product, and as a result, Discord's engagement metrics are amongst the best we have ever seen.

Breakneck Speed: At IVP we focus on companies in the hyper-growth stage and Discord is scaling and growing incredibly fast. Users are joining at an astonishing rate, and the company recently announced they had reached over 90M registered accounts less than three years after launch. We believe in a future where every gamer uses Discord every time they play.

Gaming Goes Mainstream: Thanks to the growth of online multiplayer games, mobile gaming, and new ways to create and share video content, games have become a $100BN industry and a core part of popular culture. A recent example: last month, the rapper Drake joined up with super-streamer Ninja for a casual game session and over 600,000 people tuned in live to watch them play! And before you ask, of course, they used Discord to chat!

A Bright Future: Like other successful messaging platforms, Discord benefits from strong network effects. Initially, it was small groups of friends chatting on Discord. Now, game developers and publishers, esports teams, online communities, and international influencers are building and engaging with massive audiences on Discord. We don't see this momentum slowing down, and with partnerships like the recently announced deal with Microsoft Xbox, we think Discord can expand its reach and become a global hub for gaming.

Great Co-investors: Discord's current investors include Benchmark, Greylock, Index, and Spark, which are some of the top venture capital firms in the world. We had the privilege of co-investing with these firms previously in some of our most successful investments and are delighted to collaborate with them again on Discord.

Because They Let Us: When Discord decided to raise a new financing round, IVP was one of a few firms considered as a potential lead investor. Discord is already a massive success, so we are thankful for the opportunity to partner with the company. Thank you to Jason, his team, and the Discord Board of Directors for choosing IVP. We look forward to working together in the years to come. Game on!

Somesh Dash is a General Partner at IVP, a later-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, CA. Alex Lim is a Senior Associate at IVP.
LINK: https://www.ivp.com/news/blog/press-play-ivp-invests-in-discord/...
See more stories from ivp

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

29/07/2026

Grass Valley Op-Ed Series: Seven Paradoxes Shaping the Next Era of Media Production

In this series, Grass Valley explores the seven paradoxes shaping the next era o...

29/07/2026

SVG Students to Watch: A Look Back at a Year of Spotlighting the Emerging Talent in Live Sports Production

Thats a wrap on Season 1 of SVG Students to Watch! Across the country, these stu...

29/07/2026

DAZN to Become Exclusive DTC In-Market Streaming Home of YES Network, MSG Networks; Gotham App to Shut Down

The agreement will move Gotham Sports App subscribers to DAZN during the 2026-27...

29/07/2026

Big South Promotes Emily Dassel to Associate Commissioner for Brand and Creative Strategy

Longtime digital-media leader expands role overseeing conference branding, video...

29/07/2026

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Gregg Araki, the Director of I Want Your Sex

By Bailey Pennick One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. ...

29/07/2026

TiME UK announce transatlantic partnership

Organisation team up with TI:ME USA Founded in 2019 with the aim of helping educators to embrace new music technology, Technology in Music Education (TiME U...

29/07/2026

Multiply 2: Free plug-in from Acon Digital

Doubling & chorus processor gets an overhaul Acon Digital have just launched the latest version of their free voice-doubling and chorus plug-in. Multiply 2 ...

29/07/2026

Origin Effects launch the EQDeluxe

New Pultec-inspired pedal revealed The latest addition to the Origin Effects line-up brings the legendary Pultec EQ into pedal format. Based on the EQP-1A, ...

29/07/2026

SBS Appoints Chief Commercial Officer and Director of Marketing and Audiences

SBS Appoints Chief Commercial Officer and Director of Marketing and Audiences 29 July, 2026 Media releases SBS is pleased to announce the appointment of Ni...

29/07/2026

Rohde & Schwarz showcases unified next-generation broadcasting ecosystem at SET Expo 2026 in Brazil

Rohde & Schwarz showcases unified next-generation broadcasting ecosystem at SET ...

29/07/2026

Central Christian Church Connects Remote Production Teams with Clear-Com's Gen-IC...

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...

29/07/2026

Streaming Embarks on Annual Summer Ascent in Nielsen's May 2026 Gauge Reports

Streaming Hits 48.6% of Total TV Usage in May YouTube Leads in Media Distributo...

29/07/2026

WVIT's Joseph DiMaggio Named SBE Flanders Engineer of the Year

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

Amagi Appoints Martin Wacker to Lead Sales for DACH -- St...

Industry veteran joins Amagi to drive growth in Europe's leading broadcast market and advance cloud-native broadcast, FAST, and AI-driven operations. LONDO...

29/07/2026

WebTransport opens new route for broadcast-quality media...

Work is ongoing to specify how to run RIST over WebTransport. This will deliver secure, stable, broadcast quality video playback and origination to any platform...

29/07/2026

Offline Files Makes the Drive Shelf Searchable on Mac

Offline Files Makes the Drive Shelf Searchable on Mac Brie Clayton July 29, 2026 0 Comments A local Mac app for finding files, photos, and footage acr...

29/07/2026

Blackmagic Design Announces New UltraStudio Mini 12G

Blackmagic Design Announces New UltraStudio Mini 12G Brie Clayton July 29, 2026 0 Comments New extremely portable Thunderbolt 4 capture and playback ...

29/07/2026

Brightline Lighting Introduces the MOD1

Brightline Lighting, a premier manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting systems for broadcast, videoconferencing, government, education and corporate applicati...

29/07/2026

Applications open for IFFI/WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa - Producer Delegation

Applications open for IFFI/WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa - Producer Delegation 28 July 2026 Image credit: Four Years Later Screen Australia has opened applications...

29/07/2026

Brightline Unveils Compact, Suspended MOD1 LED Light

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

NAB Meets With Trusty on Ownership Caps

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

QuickLink To Feature New StudioPro AnywhereTally At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

HBO Max Launches Vertical Shorts to Improve Content Discovery

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

New Tool Identifies Sources Of Fake Videos

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

DNEG Migrates Editorial Workflows to Foundrys Hiero

Foundry today announced that Academy Award-winning creative studio DNEG has implemented Hiero to support its editorial workflows. Part of the Nuke product famil...

29/07/2026

QuickLink Unveils New StudioPro AnywhereTally Remote Tall...

The Latest Addition to the Brand's StudioPro Ecosystem Combines Simple Deployment, Cloud Control and Professional Grade Wireless Reliability QuickLink, a l...

29/07/2026

The Secret Master Adjustment Layer Hack in After Effects

The Secret Master Adjustment Layer Hack in After Effects Graham Quince July 28, 2026 0 Comments Trish Meyer (who literally beta-tested the original Af...

29/07/2026

Post Completed with Blackmagic Cloud for Shane Kosugi's Feature Film SEEK

Post Completed with Blackmagic Cloud for Shane Kosugi's Feature Film SEEK Brie Clayton July 28, 2026 0 Comments Cannes Indie International Film Fe...

29/07/2026

Isabeau Miller Named Chair of Berklee Songwriting Department

Isabeau Miller Named Chair of Berklee Songwriting Department The Berklee alumna, who previously served on the Songwriting faculty, will begin her new role on ...

29/07/2026

Hayu is coming to Sky, bringing fan-favourite franchises The Real Housewives, Below Deck and more to customers, at no extra cost

Wednesday 29 July 2026 Hayu is coming to Sky, bringing fan-favourite franchises...

29/07/2026

New RT true crime podcast launches today

RT launches Unsolved, a true crime podcast, presented by crime journalist Barry Cummins and presenter Katja Mia. Unsolved is a weekly podcast exploring unsol...

28/07/2026

LiveUs World Cup Record: 1,700 Units Support Wide Range of Transmission Needs

LiveU, the pioneer in IP-video transmission and cloud-based remote production, today detailed its historic performance records set during the 2026 FIFA World Cu...

28/07/2026

Case Study: How the Dallas Cowboys Removed Bottlenecks in Off-site Content Production

The NFL franchise rebuilt their off-site content operation for an era when teams...

28/07/2026

A New Way To Watch': How Formula 1 and Sky Sports Are Pushing Race Coverage Into a New Era

Longtime partners expand viewer choice, data-driven analysis, access, immersive ...

28/07/2026

Grass Valley Op Ed: Seven Paradoxes Shaping the Next Era of Media Production

There is a unique moment before every major production. The audience never sees it. The cameras are ready. The talent is preparing. Directors review the final...

28/07/2026

The CW Network, ESPN Ink Streaming Agreement With Launch on Aug. 4

The CW Network and ESPN have announced their highly anticipated streaming agreement to bring CW Sports' live events to the ESPN App will officially launch o...

28/07/2026

Lawo Delivers Audio Excellence for Europes Largest Classical Open-Air Concert on Bastille Day

As more than tens of thousands of spectators filled Paris' Champ de Mars and...

28/07/2026

Appear Assists Chile's First Large-Scale 4K FIFA World Cup Viewing Experience

Appear's X Platform played a central role in Chile's first large-scale c...

28/07/2026

IBC 2026: Solid State Logic Highlights Transition to Software-Defined Production

Responding to the broadcast industry's shift to embrace more flexible production platforms, Solid State Logic (SSL) is evolving its comprehensive System T p...

28/07/2026

TNT Sports Goes to Greater Heights With New DUNKMAN League

Production leverages innovative camera technologies, AI, and data to capture the action in four-week inaugural competition The first-ever professional dunking ...

28/07/2026

Rogers, Prime Video Ink 12-Year Sublicensing Deal for NHL Rights in Canada

Prime Video to exclusively broadcast Wednesday night national NHL regular-season games in Canada...

28/07/2026

CBS Sports Snags U.S. English-Language Rights for CONCACAF Champions Cup

Every match will stream live on Paramount+ beginning in February,...

28/07/2026

TK Audio unveil the TK-Lizer 3

Baxandall-inspired hardware EQ overhauled TK Audio's Baxandall-inspired hardware EQ unit has just made a return, bringing the popular unit back into the...

28/07/2026

Asparion reveal the D700 Rack

D700 system gains new live-focused rackmount surface Asparion have just announced an expansion of their D700 control surface range, introducing a new model ...

28/07/2026

Six NFVF Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP)-Funded Films Selected for the 47th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF)

27 July 2026, Johannesburg - The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an a...

28/07/2026

Nielsen Launches Ad Intel AI: the Only Product of its Kind that Transforms Fragmented Ad Data into Actionable Intelligence

Ad Intel AI is Nielsen's first in a new generation of AI products built to t...