Guilded

Guilded operates a communication platform meticulously designed for gaming communities, positioning itself as a direct competitor to more established services like Discord. The company was founded in 2017 by Eli Brown, a software engineer with a background at Facebook, Instagram, and Xbox, and a competitive history in Starcraft II. His experience in both social platforms and gaming directly informed Guilded's feature-rich environment. The startup participated in the Y Combinator S17 batch and secured a total of $10.2M in funding over several rounds, including a $7 million Series A in 2020.

The platform's core business revolves around providing integrated tools to help gaming groups, or "guilds," organize, communicate, and compete. Guilded distinguishes itself by offering a suite of advanced features for free that typically require a paid subscription on competing platforms. These include integrated calendars for scheduling events, forums for discussions, to-do lists, and document channels, all built-in without the need for third-party bots. The service also provides higher quality voice chat with up to 256kbps audio bitrate and video streaming at 1080p/60fps at no cost. This feature set is tailored to serve the organizational needs of esports teams and large, structured gaming communities for titles like Fortnite, Overwatch, and League of Legends.

A significant milestone in the company's history was its acquisition by Roblox in August 2021 for approximately $90 million. Following the acquisition, Guilded continues to operate as an independent product group, with the stated mission of enhancing its platform and developing more ambitious projects with the backing of its new parent company. This strategic acquisition was seen as a move by Roblox to integrate more robust communication and community management tools into its ecosystem, leveraging Guilded's technology to deepen user engagement. The platform is available on PC and mobile devices, aiming to connect gamers across all platforms.

Keywords: gaming communication, community platform, esports tools, voice chat, video chat, team organization, guild management, Discord alternative, Roblox, Eli Brown, Y Combinator, game scheduling, integrated calendar, community forums, gamer organization, recruiting tools, member management, collaborative gaming, tournament platform, online communities