Discord

San Francisco-based Discord is the brainchild of Stanislav Vishnevskiy and Jason Citron. Launched in 2015 as a platform where gamers can chat with one another, it has grown from just 20 users to more than 90 million worldwide. Its online platform is similar to social media in that it helps you connect with friends and strangers over shared interests, be it a videogame like Minecraft, or cryptocurrency and anime. You can create communities akin to Reddit's subreddits--chat rooms Discord calls servers--where you can connect with others through voice, text, or video. Joining and creating your own server is free, although in early 2017 the company introduced a paid subscription that offers some digital goodies like custom GIFs and a bigger file-size limit for $5 a month. Its popularity has attracted some superstar gamers like Ninja, a well-known Fortnite player who recently used the platform to chat with hip-hop artist Drake as they played together online. Discord currently has 100 employees, and it has raised more than $100 million from prestigious venture capital firms including Benchmark and Greylock Capital. It is not profitable yet. --Guadalupe Gonzalez