The archive · Consumer Apps · Strategic decision · 2018–2019
Discord's game-store bet: $150M at a $2.05B valuation to challenge Steam at 90/10
Gamer chat with 200M+ users raised $150M at a $2.05B valuation to fund a store that gives developers 90/10 against Steam's 70/30.
Discord
What the business is
Free voice and text chat for gamers, plus a game store: the Discord Store entered a global beta in October 2018 selling titles directly to its community, with a planned 90/10 revenue split for self-published developers from 2019.
Starting capital：More than $280M raised by December 2018: $50M at a $1.65B valuation in April 2018, then $150M at a $2.05B valuation on 2018-12-21, led by Greenoaks Capital with Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners.
How it started
Discord built its free chat into one of the most popular services of its kind for gamers, and by 2018 CEO Jason Citron was pushing beyond chat. In October 2018 the company launched a global beta of the Discord Store, its challenge to Valve's Steam, and announced that from 2019 self-publishing developers would keep a 90/10 revenue split.
What happened
On December 21, 2018, TechCrunch reported Discord had secured $150M at a $2.05B valuation — up from $50M at $1.65B in April — with Greenoaks Capital leading and Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners participating. Total funding passed $280M. The money arrived as the store was the company's most ambitious push yet: Citron had talked at TechCrunch Disrupt about the opportunity in the online-games sales market and the challenges ahead.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Discord is the free voice-and-text chat network where gaming communities gather, used during and outside gameplay. By December 2018 TechCrunch called it one of the most popular services of its kind, reporting more than 200 million users, and CEO Jason Citron was pushing its most ambitious bet yet: turning that audience into a game store that could rival Valve's Steam.
The store moved fast in late 2018: a global beta of the Discord Store launched in October, and Discord said that from 2019 self-publishing developers would keep a 90/10 revenue split — far friendlier than the 70/30 split on Steam. On December 21, 2018, TechCrunch reported Discord had secured $150 million at a $2.05 billion valuation, led by Greenoaks Capital with Firstmark, Tencent, IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners. That followed a $50 million round at a $1.65 billion valuation in April and brought total funding past $280 million.
The bet rested on distribution: gamers already spent hours inside Discord, so a store was a click away rather than a separate destination, and indie developers had a concrete reason to try it. Whether chat communities would actually buy games there was the open question the round was paying to answer.
What has to be true
- Discord had the distribution Steam lacked: a 200M+ user community already living in the chat app, so a store did not have to acquire its own audience.
- Steam's 70/30 split was the supply-side opening — 90/10 for self-published titles gave indie developers a concrete financial reason to list on a rival store.
- Backing from Greenoaks, Firstmark, Tencent, IVP and Index signaled institutional belief that a gamer chat network could be worth a $2B valuation and grow into a commerce channel.
- Raising twice in eight months ($50M in April, $150M in December) let Discord fund the store and other monetization experiments while chat stayed free.
What can be applied
Free, category-defining chat can carry a company to a $2B valuation before monetization; the open question was whether users would buy where they talk and whether 90/10 could break Steam's grip.
Aftermath
As of December 21, 2018, Discord's chat service remained its core business, with what TechCrunch called hundreds of millions of users each month, while the Discord Store sat in global beta and a 90/10 developer split was announced for 2019. The $150M round had closed at a $2.05B valuation, taking total funding past $280M. Whether the store would dent Steam — and whether chat could become a durable revenue business — was still unproven.
Sources
- Gaming chat startup Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation
- HN discussion: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation
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