Intercom raises $125 million to take on Salesforce

When it comes to sales software, Salesforce isn’t the only game in town.

A number of startups have emerged to target the sales industry, with roughly $3 billion per year getting invested into marketing startups. Now one of the largest players is Intercom.

The seven-year-old startup is now announcing a $125 million Series D round led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Google Ventures. Veteran investor Mary Meeker will also be joining the board.

The valuation is $1.275 billion, meaning that the company is considered a “unicorn.” The round brings the total amount raised to $241 million. Existing investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.

Intercom is the “next generation customer database that’s specifically built for internet businesses,” co-founder and CEO Eoghan McCabe said in an interview with TechCrunch. “Salesforce is not built for internet businesses.”

“When a business uses the Intercom Messenger, they see conversation rates increase,” McCabe claims. Intercom says that customer sales go up an average of 82%.

The startup touts its “messaging-first approach,” helping its clients with customer acquisition and support. It says it powers 500 million conversations per month across its 25,000 customers. Atlassian, New Relic and Shopify use Intercom.

Intercom says it will use the funding to further develop its customer platform. It plans to double its research and development teams. Says McCabe, Intercom is “putting our foot on the pedal.”

Intercom, which has a strong presence in both the United States and Ireland, hopes to use the capital to expand its workforce beyond 500 employees.

It also would like to further expand its geographic footprint, adding customers across Europe and Asia.

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