Edmonton-based business management platform Jobber has closed its biggest financing round to date, with New York-based growth equity firm General Atlantic leading the US$100-million Series D. Existing investors Summit Partners, Version One Ventures and Tech Pioneers Fund also participated.

The deal—which co-founder and CEO Sam Pillar said represents a significant up round for the scale-up—defies current venture capital market dynamics in which companies have struggled to raise funds from increasingly cautious investors. 

Here’s what Pillar had to say about the company’s Series D and this moment in tech: 

On resisting hype cycles: There’s a Warren Buffett quote that Pillar uses to guide his thinking on fundraising: “Be greedy when others are fearful.”

“Over the last couple of years, the markets have been pretty wild … Things have changed, obviously, pretty dramatically since then,” said Pillar. “During that period where everybody was greedy, as it were, we kind of stood back, cocked our head[s] and tried to understand what was really going on, and all the while continuing to build.”

On the perks of slow growth: Demand for the services that the company’s platform supports—things like business management for plumbers, electricians and landscapers—tends to be fairly stable, regardless of economic conditions, said Pillar. While Jobber saw a slight acceleration in parts of its business over the pandemic, he said it was nothing dramatic, in the way some platforms experienced. 

“I think for a lot of companies that was really tough—the year-over-year comparisons to those periods of really rapid growth,” said Pillar “Your growth rates obviously can’t sustain against an unnatural pull forward like that.”

On fundraising now: Pillar said Jobber didn’t have to raise now. “We had the option of just continuing to grow on our own steam. That’s the position that you would like to be in anytime you’re considering a fundraise,” he said. 

While the CEO declined to disclose specifics on the deal’s terms, he said they were founder-friendly and include a significant valuation increase relative to Jobber’s last round. 

The company plans to spend the money on hiring, research and development, and customer acquisition. 

On how the company is thinking about layoffs: Except for a brief hiring freeze at the start of the pandemic, Jobber has steadily added staff over the past few years, even as thousands of tech workers in Canada lost their jobs. That doesn’t mean Jobber is going on a hiring spree to snap up available talent. “As with everything, we try to apply a really disciplined, rigorous approach to recruiting and increasing headcount,” Pillar said. 

On Alberta’s engineering designation saga: The company has been locked in a lawsuit with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta over the legal definition of “software engineer,” which Jobber argues limits its ability to attract talent. “That’s working its way through the courts,” Pillar said.