Software company Intercom has raised $125m from investors including Google parent company Alphabet's venture capital arm GV.
The fundraising values the company - set up by a group of Irish entrepreneurs - at $1.275 billion.
That puts Intercom into the "unicorn" category - a term popularised in Silicon Valley to describe start-up companies that achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion.
The fourth funding round for Intercom was led by Kleiner Perkins and included investment from GV, previously known as Google Ventures. It brings to $241m the sum raised by the business to date.
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Intercom was founded in 2011 by Des Traynor, Eoghan McCabe, Ciaran Lee and David Barrett in San Francisco.
It employs over 450 people worldwide including 220 in Dublin. In February Intercom announced plans to hire 350 staff, 150 in Ireland.
The company's software is used by businesses to communicate with their customers. The rapid growth of online commerce has helped drive demand for messaging and communications services that help businesses manage customer interation, generate leads and convert enquiries into sales.
Financial information on the privately-owned Intercom is closely held but the company says it has over 25,000 paying customers and that its platform is used by them to enable over 500 million conversations each month.
Businesses using Intercom include auction house Sotheby's and audio streaming app Spotify.
