Dublin and San Francisco-based software company, Intercom has raised $35m in its third round of funding, and plans to use part of the finance to double its 70-strong workforce in Dublin to 140 over the next year.

Intercom was established just three years ago by four Irish entrepreneurs, including chief executive, Eoghan McCabe. It develops software products that enable online businesses to communicate more efficiently with their customers and now has 7,000 customers across 85 countries.

Its total funding now amounts to $66m (€58m) and the company is valued at over €200m.

Unusually, all the firm’s product engineering and design is carried out in Dublin with its business development functions centred in San Francisco - for many tech firms it's the opposite way around.

Intercom’s Vice President of Product, Paul Adams, joined Breakfast Business this morning, he spoke to Vincent Wall about the Dublin operation. He says that settling in Ireland has helped the company to get ahead in the current international "talent war" for software designers and engineers.

While it is still highly-competitive in Ireland - the labour market is not as tight as it is in other tech hubs, and Ireland offers a strong pool of talent to draw from. 

One trend that the company has seen is people leaving bigger tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google to join Intercom.

Mr Adams thinks that these people are drawn to Intercom by the challenge of getting involved in the development of the business and its products in a way which is not possible in larger companies.

"The people who leave these big established companies leave a lot behind - they think the opportunity is bigger," he continues, "all our R&D is here - all our product decisions are made here."

It seems like Intercom could be headed towards a public offering, but he says that this is "not an explicit goal" - but concedes that "of course it would be very nice."