Discourse Announces $20m Series A Investment by Pace Capital and First Round Capital

We're pleased to announce that Discourse has taken $20 million in Series A investment from Pace Capital, joined by our seed investors, First Round Capital.

It's been quite a journey since our seed foundation in 2012 and the launch of Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Incorporated. In that time, the company has grown from 4 to 54 people, from $0 to over $10 million per year in revenue, and from 0 to 20,000 Discourse instances. You might say we're a ten year overnight success.

We’re honored to cultivate the long-term relationship between Chris Paik at Pace, who has been gracefully following along with us since the earliest days, and the enduring warmth and empathy of Josh Kopelman at First Round. They understand that Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Incorporated sits at the unique intersection of ...

• remaining uncompromisingly open source
• totally 100% JavaScript to the bone, plus Ruby server side
• completely committed to a remote-first view of work
• gently but firmly encouraging people in a just-in-time manner to be their best online selves
• being the easiest, most frictionless, simplest.. dare I say.. funnest.. way of getting things done with other people on the internet 🎉

There was a steady drumbeat of potential investors who kept approaching us as we grew, but it never felt like a solid fit, particularly with the uncertainty around the global pandemic. But with Chris and Josh, we felt they truly understood the long-term vision of what we set out to achieve at Discourse, and the unique path of a remote-first, open source company.

We're thrilled to use these funds to advance Discourse on multiple fronts at once, to reach totally new audiences, and to keep improving and refining Discourse so it continues to be the best open source teamwork solution for groups of any size. We love working on Discourse, and these funds put fresh winds in our sails and spring in our stride.

This investment also means you can be confident that Discourse isn't going anywhere. You can build on top of the Discourse platform and enjoy not only the well understood contract of 100% open source software, but also the support of a large, incredibly talented team galvanized by the idea of making online work just a little bit easier and just a little bit more fun every single day.

Speaking of, we are hiring on every team, including the executive team, at Discourse. If the idea of what we're building resonates with you -- if you'd like to work on an open source project that touches millions of people all around the world -- if you want to change the world, at least our little part of it, for the better .. don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to talk to you about how to build not just a great product, but also a great company, together. We can't do it without you!

Thank you so much for your support over the years, whether it was simply using Discourse, spreading the word about Discourse, running your own Discourse instance, contributing feedback on Meta, or adding to our open source repositories. Here's to the next decade of online Discourse with you. 🍻