Intercom has announced today that it has raised an additional $50 million, bringing its total funding to $116 million.
The raise comes at a time when all eyes are focused on the messaging industry, which is enjoying fast growth in all areas, from mobile-first chat solutions through to in-app engagement.
And Intercom has enjoyed a significant slice of that pie. In the last year, it has doubled overall headcount to 250 and grown revenues 4X into the 10s of millions of dollars.
But the company — which provides a suite of integrated products for every team, including sales, marketing, product, and support — isn’t resting on its laurels.
“We set out four years ago to make internet business personal,” Eoghan McCabe, co-founder and CEO at Intercom told me. “Still today, the way businesses and customers interact online is largely impersonal — there’s still a ton of spam, shitty ‘dear valued customer, your ticket number is 523, this case will automatically close in 5 days,’ content. We’ve done a lot but have a long way to go.”
So what will these new funds, which Intercom claims will be its final round since it won’t need to raise further funds to reach profitability, be used for?
“Our investment in the product is really what sets us apart,” McCabe said. “You won’t see us use these funds to ramp aggressive and spammy sales and marketing. We’ll continue to focus our capital and energy on building a great product.”
Of course, everyone says that they are dedicated to the product, but Intercom backs up its claims with data. Last year, the company spent 85% of its revenue, and assigned 50% of its headcount, to research and development.
And the company understands what is happening in the mobile messaging space, making moves to integrate with the most forward-looking platforms.
“We care about all ways that businesses and their customers interact online,” McCabe said. “So we want to evolve Intercom to cover the full spectrum of customer communication. For instance, we recently added support for Facebook Messenger. We’re also working on a new product, and we’re reinventing a core part of our tech that’ll help businesses and customers connect in even more personal ways. Both will launch later this year.”
That is important, because we live in the age of the never satisfied, always mobile customer.
“We’re helping the people behind internet businesses to be their human selves,” McCabe said. “Everything gets worse when customers have to deal with a faceless brand. The more that the people behind a business can be real with their customers and connect in a more personal way, the more empathy you get on both sides of the equation.”
Intercom now has over 10,000 paying customers in over 90 countries, ranging from startups like Expensify and Trunk Club to public companies like Rackspace and IBM. Its customers have used the platform to communicate with over 500 million end-users.
Index Ventures lead the round, with participation from previous investors ICONIQ Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Social Capital.
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