Intercom (company)

Intercom, Inc.
Private company
Industry Customer communications
Founded 2011 (2011)
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Key people
 Eoghan McCabe (CEO), Des Traynor (CSO), Ciaran Lee (CTO), David Barrett (Engineer)
Number of employees
 300+
Website www.intercom.com

Intercom is a US-based software company that makes a customer messaging platform. The company allows software businesses to chat with prospective and existing customers within their app, on their website, through social media, or via email. Intercom is headquartered in San Francisco and additional offices in Chicago, Dublin and London.

As of February 2017, Intercom has 17,000 paying customers and 100,000 monthly active users.[1][2]

History

Intercom was founded in California in 2011 by four Irish designers and engineers, Eoghan McCabe, Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee and David Barrett.[3] The four previously ran Irish software design consultancy Contrast, which made Exceptional, a bug tracking tool.

McCabe says the idea for Intercom came out of a fruitless search to find a customer-facing chat tool that modelled the “intimacy” of the local coffee shop where the four regularly congregated.[4] After selling off Exceptional, which is now part of Rackspace, in 2011, they used the proceeds to start Intercom.[5]

The founders initially struggled to get funding in the U.S. Their break came in 2012 when Twitter co-founder Biz Stone invested an undisclosed sum in Intercom.[1] Shortly thereafter Intercom received seed funding from David Sacks, Huddle founder Andy McLoughlin, and others.[6] In March 2013 it announced a $6 million Series A round led by Social Capital.[7] In January 2014 it received a $23 million series B funding lead by Bessemer Venture Partners.[8] Intercom also received a $50 million series C-1 funding lead by Index Ventures.[9][10]

In 2017 Intercom offered to pay the legal fees for those affected by US president Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims who wanted to relocate to Ireland.[11]

In 2018 Intercom announced a $125 million Series D round led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Google Ventures.[12]

Products

Intercom’s platform lets businesses track and filter customer data. This data includes conversation history, product usage behavior, past purchases, payment details, etc. Businesses can use these attributes to trigger personalized, automated marketing emails and in-app messages.[13]

Intercom lets businesses create and send targeted in-app messages to customers while they’re logged into their app.[14]

Intercom relies on 3rd party services that include Upscope for instant screen sharing with customers, Toky for voice calls and Survicate for extensive NPS and customer surveys.

References

  1. 1 2 Bort, Julie. "How drinking Guinness with Biz Stone launched one of the fastest-growing startups in the Valley today". Business Insider. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  2. ↑ O'Brien, Ciara. "Intercom reaches 17,000 paying customers, including Microsoft". The Irish Times. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  3. ↑ O'Brien, Ciara. "Serial entrepreneur's expanding his tech success from base in the Valley". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  4. ↑ Blattberg, Eric. "Intercom grabs $23M to treat Internet customers more like coffee shop patrons". VentureBeat. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  5. ↑ Newenham, Pamela. "Four Irishmen on a mission to build a billion-dollar company". The Irish Times. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  6. ↑ O'Dell, Jolie (25 January 2012). "Startup Intercom nabs $1M from Biz Stone and other prominent angels". Reuters. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  7. ↑ Ha, Anthony. "Customer Communication Startup Intercom Raises $6M Round Led By The Social+Capital Partnership". TechCrunch. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  8. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid. "Intercom Raises Another $23M For Its New, More Social Approach To CRM". TechCrunch. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  9. ↑ Goldfisher, Alastair (7 April 2016). "Index leads $50 mln funding round for Intercom". PE Hub. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  10. ↑ Garland, Russ. "Index Ventures Backs Intercom in $50 Million Series D". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  11. ↑ Geron, Tomio; Zakrzewski, Cat (1 February 2017). "Startup Investors and Executives Denounce Border Curbs". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  12. ↑ "Intercom raises $125 million to take on Salesforce – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-05-15.
  13. ↑ Konrad, Alex. "How The 'Silly' Irish Founders At Intercom Built One Of Silicon Valley's Fastest-Growing Businesses". Forbes. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  14. ↑ Levine, Barry. "Intercom brings consumer-like messaging to business applications". VentureBeat. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
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