TWITTER CO-FOUNDER Biz Stone has emerged as one of the investors who are backing Irish software start-up Intercom to the tune of $1 million (€760,000).
Intercom chief executive Eoghan McCabe announced the funding from high-profile Irish and international technology investors at the 500 Startups demo day in San Francisco yesterday.
Mr Stone and Irish-born Facebook executive Paul Adams, who also participated in the investment, will join Intercom’s advisory board.
“Biz Stone is very excited about the product and said he would have used it if it was available when Twitter was starting up,” said Mr McCabe.
Describing it as a cross between a customer relationship management (CRM) system and an instant messaging platform, Mr McCabe said Intercom allows users find out more about their customers and communicate with them more effectively.
Other investors in the round include Digital Garage, a Japanese fund that has backed Twitter and Path in recent years; San Francisco seed fund 500 Startups; Andy McLoughlin, the co-founder of Huddle, a cloud-based collaboration tool; and Canadian technology investor Dan Martell.
Irish technology entrepreneurs Paddy Holohan and Eamonn Leonard also participated.
Intercom has developed a tool that integrates into a company’s website and tracks the activity of users as well as enabling targeted messages to certain types of customers eg those currently availing of a free trial. If a customer has provided an email address, the system can link them to publicly available information on social networks to provide an even deeper insight into who the customers are.
Mr McCabe said Intercom will "disrupt" the business of Salesforce.com. "Salesforce is a great way to manage relationships with customers if the relationship is in person or over the phone and you have a long sales cycle," said Mr McCabe. "Web businesses are not like that – they don't sell in the same way."
Intercom has been in a private test, or beta phase, since the middle of last year, and Mr McCabe said 500 companies were using it to track about one million customers. A free version of the service launched yesterday but Intercom has not decided what the final price for the service will be.
Mr McCabe said the seed round of investment would enable the company to develop the product and business model further before raising more finance.
Intercom has been incorporated as a Delaware-based corporation and Mr McCabe has relocated to San Francisco to support the development of the company.
The company was founded in Dublin last year by Mr McCabe, Des Traynor, Dave Barrett and Ciarán Lee.
Mr McCabe said Intercom’s management and marketing will be based in the US but it wants to keep its engineering function in Dublin.
“It’s a great thing for us to have because, right now, in the US everyone is competing for talent,” said Mr McCabe.
