After 13 years, Discord co-founder Jason Citron released the CEO post. Ex-Activision Manager Humam Sakhnini takes over the management of the chat platform with 200 million users. Timing is no coincidence – the IPO should be imminent.
Co-founder Citron releases CEO posts
Discord co-founder Jason Citron hand over the leadership of the popular chat platform after 13 years. Like the company recently announced will take over the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from April 28, 2025 from April 28, 2025. Citron remains the company as a consultant and member of the board of directors.
The change of management comes at a strategically important time: Discord is reportedly preparing for a IPO that could take place this year. At the last round of financing in 2021, the company was rated at around $ 15 billion (around 13.2 billion euros).
Gaming expertise and stock exchange experience
Sakhnini brings extensive experience from the game industry. Most recently, he worked as a Vice Chairman at Activision Blizzard and supervised the $ 69 billion takeover by Microsoft in 2023. “I am incredibly happy to join Discord,” said Sakhnini in a message. “Discord stands as a massive, fundamental part of the gaming ecosystem, on which millions of players, developers and publishers rely every day.” The platform now has more than 200 million monthly active users who spend about two billion hours on the platform every month. Discord shows the revised design of his messenger
Return on gaming roots
Discord was founded in 2015 by Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, who will continue to work as a Chief Technology Officer. Originally designed as a communication tool for gamers, the platform developed into a wider social network, especially during Coronavirus pandemic (Covid 19). Before the foundation of Discord, Citron had already gained experience in the game industry.
In 2009 he founded the mobile gaming company Openfeinst, a social gaming platform for iOS, which he sold to the Japanese company Gree for $ 104 million in 2011. This experience was largely included in the development of Discord, which initially scored primarily due to its low latency and low resource use in gamers. Official introduction to the new Discord Game Overlay
In an interview with Venture Citron said that he was “more of a developer, an Early-Stage type” and the hiring of Sakhnini “was a step towards” IPO. After the intensive time as CEO, the now 40-year-old is now looking forward to a break and to play games like “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” and “Baldurs Gate III”.
Monetarization strategy in change
Loud The verge Discord adapted his strategy last year and pruded more on his gaming roots. The company pursues new monetarization options beyond its premium subscription service Discord Nitro, including advertising and microtransactions-a development that could be viewed critically at the gaming community.
It is interesting that Discord 2021 rejected a takeover offer from Microsoft in the amount of $ 12 billion. Instead, the company decided on the path of independence and collected another $ 500 million in a financing round. With the upcoming IPO, Discord could continue this independent course and at the same time secure the necessary capital for further growth.
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