One of the world's most popular chat apps has raised $15 B

According to a spokesperson for the popular digital chat company Bloomberg - Discord Inc. raised $500 million in a new round of financing.

The deal value Discord around $15 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. That s more than double the $7 billion price tag investors gave to the company during a funding round last year.

The financing was initiated by Dragoneer Investment Group. Investors also participated, along existing investors, the spokesperson said.

Discord is especially popular with gaming, but has expanded to everything from maths clubs to music groups. It now has more than 150 million monthly active users, who use the service to communicate via voice, video and text.

In an emailed statement, Jason Citron, Discord co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, said that the new capital will be used to expand the company's workforce and investment in new features and tools.

Bloomberg had earlier reported that Dragoneer was in talks to lead this new investment.

Prior to this year, several companies approached Discord about an acquisition. The company was in talks with Microsoft Corp. which was in negotiations with $9 billion for the startup, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Aber the discussions ended with Discord rejecting the offer this spring.

Some existing investors include Benchmark, Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures & Equity and Discord. Prior to this round of funding, the company had already raised almost $600 million to date according to data provider PitchBook.