Dublin-based customer messaging company Intercom has raised $125m (€101m) in a funding round that sees the firm now valued at $1.275bn (€1.03bn)

The lead funder in the round is US venture firm Kleiner Perkins, with Google Ventures also participating.

The move makes Intercom the most valuable Irish tech company.

The company, cofounded by Ciaran Lee, David Barrett, Des Traynor and Eoghan McCabe, has now raised almost €200m in funding.

Intercom’s main business is a customer messaging platform online. Typically, this can be through dialogue boxes and other techniques. Many people have seen its product without realising that it has been designed and configured by the Irish entrepreneurs.

The company is now namechecked among Silicon Valley types as an industry standard.

Intercom’s products are designed and developed in Dublin, not Silicon Valley, even if its headquarters is now technically in San Francisco.

It has over 400 employees divided between offices in Dublin, San Francisco, London, Chicago and Sydney.

The company currently has over 25,000 paying customers in sales, marketing, and support teams. It claims to power 500m conversations a month and that this figure is doubling every year. Intercom also claims to have helped businesses connect with over 1bn unique people to date.

With its new funding, Intercom “will invest aggressively” in the development of its customer platform.

“We’re excited to put this new capital to work for our customers to rapidly mature our existing products, with a special focus on functionality for larger organisations,” said Intercom co-founder and CEO, Eoghan McCabe.

“This year, we’re also investing in new machine learning technologies to launch some powerful, market-first smart automation features to help accelerate growth for our customers.”

Internet analyst Mary Meeker, general partner at Kleiner Perkins and noted for her annual reports, has joined the board of the company.

“The Internet has changed the way businesses connect with customers. Businesses must increasingly be customer-centric and serve users wherever they are, whenever they want,” said Ms Meekerr.

“Intercom enables businesses to have a strong relationship with their customers from first touchpoint to repeat purchase. Its platform unifies customer data and allows sales, marketing, and support teams to have consistently high-quality interactions with the people that use their products.”

Previous financial backers of the firm include Silicon Valley investors that include Index Ventures, Iconiq Capital and Bessemer.

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, the Collison brothers and other top tech entrepreneurs, either through investment firms or through social capital, have also backed the company.

Online Editors