Intercom lands $50 million to own the customer communication journey

Intercom announced today that it has raised an additional $50 million, bringing its total funding to $116 million.

The raise comes as all eyes are focused on the messaging industry, which is enjoying fast growth across 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, cofounder 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.”

Intercom claims that this will be its final round, stating that it won’t need to raise further funds to reach profitability — so what will they 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 their product, but Intercom backs up its claims with data. Last year, the company spent 85 percent of its revenue and assigned 50 percent of its headcount to research and development.

The company also understands what is happening in the mobile messaging space and is 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.