Jobber CEO and cofounder Sam Pillar.
Jobber
Jobber, a software company that helps home-service firms manage their businesses, has raised a $60 million growth equity round, as it seeks to capitalize on the spike in the industry brought on by Covid-19.
The firm has 100,000 service professionals on its platform across 47 countries, with the U.S. comprising its largest individual market. Last year Jobber processed $1.7 billion in transactions, and during that time it grew recurring revenue by 90%.
The pandemic has been a tailwind. “Our customers are home service businesses: landscapers and lawn care companies, plumbers, electricians, HVAC businesses,” says cofounder and CEO Sam Pillar. “These aren’t discretionary services. If your roof is leaking, you’re gonna fix it. If your furnace is broken, you’re gonna fix it.”
Summit Partners led the funding round, with participation from OMERS Ventures, Version One Ventures and Tech Pioneers Fund. “We believe the home service category is in the early stages of a significant digital transformation,” Colin Mistele, a principal at Summit, said in a statement.
It’s a wide open market. There are some five million small and medium home service businesses in the U.S., many with analog workflows. Jobber’s pitch is that—like its fleet of competitors—it can digitize invoicing, job requests and crew management, thereby increasing speed and easing burdens on business owners.
In the past year, with millions of Americans working from home, many people have prioritized home repairs and improvements. That uptick is expected to persist. “The U.S. home service market is expected to increase at a significant growth rate” through 2024, according to a recent report from Research and Markets, citing, among other factors, the improved customer experience enabled by digitization.
“We’re operating in a massive market, and a market that is increasingly coming online as well,” says Pillar, who cofounded Jobber in 2011 with Forrest Zeisler, whom he met in a coffee shop. His challenge will be outflanking startups like TaskRabbit and other prop-tech software platforms. But there is plenty of business to fight over.