DocuSign

DocuSign

Industry	Software as a Service
Founded	2003
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Keith Krach (CEO) Tom Gonser (Founder and Chief Strategy Officer) Dustin Grosse (Chief Marketing Officer) Mike Dinsdale (CFO) Joe Fuca (SVP Worldwide Sales) Roger Erickson (VP of Customer Success) Ken Moyle (Chief Legal Officer) Grant Peterson (CTO) Harry Safstrom (VP Organizational Development) Robin Ducot (VP of Product Development) Tom Pageler (Chief Information Security Officer)[1]
Products	Electronic signatures
Website	docusign.com

DocuSign is a San Francisco-based company that provides cloud-based electronic signature technology for facilitating exchanges of contracts, documents and legal materials. DocuSign’s features include authentication services, user identity management and workflow automation. Signatures processed by DocuSign are comparable to traditional signatures based on the product's compliance with the ESIGN Act^[2] as well as the European Union’s Directive on eSignatures.^[3]

History

Early Years

Tom Gonser founded DocuSign in 2003 after leaving NetUpdate, a company he founded in 1998 and ran as CEO until his departure. NetUpdate acquired several companies, including an early-stage e-signature start-up in Seattle called DocuTouch, founded by Mir Hajmiragha.^[4] DocuTouch held patents on Web-based digital signatures and collaboration, but had no material revenue.

Upon leaving NetUpdate, Gonser negotiated the purchase of certain DocuTouch assets and started DocuSign. He tapped Eric Ranft as CTO and VP of engineering and Court Lorenzini as CEO. As it turned out, none of the DocuTouch technology or code base was used to build the first versions of DocuSign.^[5] The company's first URL was docusign-inc.com.

DocuSign's goal was to create a simple e-signature process without requiring software or digital certificates, because the e-signature tools in the market were too complex and had not grown despite their tremendous potential for streamlining business.^[6] DocuSign spent its first two years developing electronic signature technology that conformed to the Federal ESIGN Act. The company developed a browser-based electronic signature processing system by early 2004. It was among the first SaaS-based electronic signature services that did not require use of complex digital certificates.

In 2004, DocuSign raised $4.6 million from Frazier Technology Ventures.^[7] The firm began sales in 2005 when zipForms (now zipLogix) integrated DocuSign into its virtual real estate forms.^[8]

Corporate Growth

Additional rounds of investments between 2006 and 2009 helped DocuSign serve 2.5 million users.^[9] Over three investment rounds, DocuSign received $30 million that allowed the firm to add corporate clients and process 48 million signatures.^[10] DocuSign technology was demonstrated two mock trials featuring licensed attorneys and real judges. These demonstrations highlighted the admissibility of DocuSign contracts in court based on encrypted audit logs of signature events as well as the impossibility of changing contracts.^[11]

In June 2010, DocuSign added support for iPhone, iPad and phone-based user authentication.^[12] DocuSign also began referring to its service as “eSignature Transaction Management” to reflect the functional growth beyond signing. By the end of 2010, the company handled 73 percent of the Saas-based electronic signature market with 80 million signatures processed.^[3] Scale Venture Partners led an investment round of $27 million in December 2010.^[13]

Keith Krach became DocuSign's chairman of the board in January 2010 and CEO in August 2011.^[14]

DocuSign opened an office in London, England in September 2011, and appointed Bob DeSantis, formerly DocuSigns VP of US Sales for DocuSign, as managing director of European operations.^[15] In the same year, DocuSign opened an office in San Francisco, the city which now functions as its global headquarters.

DocuSign signed an agreement in April 2012 with PayPal that allowed users to capture signatures and payments in a single transaction with DocuSign Payment.^[16] Similar partnerships with Salesforce,^[17] the National Association of Realtors^[18] and Google Drive^[19] preceded the PayPal agreement.

The firm raised $47.5 million in venture funding in July 2012 from multiple investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. At the same time, noted venture capitalist Mary Meeker became a member of its Board of Directors^[20]

On January 10, 2013, DocuSign and Equifax announced a partnership to simplify electronic delivery of the Requests for Transcript of Tax Return Form 4506-T to the United States Internal Revenue Service. Under the partnership, Equifax allows lenders to use DocuSign to securely send requests to loan applicants. DocuSign and Equifax were among 14 firms that participated in a nine-month feasibility study of electronic signatures for 4506-T forms in 2011.^[21]

Key Statistics

• DocuSign has raised $104 million in financing since its founding in 2003.
• Business Insider found that about 90% of Fortune 500 companies had signed up with DocuSign as of July 2012. By the same month, the firm reached 25 million users who had completed 150 million signatures in 188 countries.^[22]
• Through July 2011, DocuSign had processed a total of 500 million pages, equivalent to about 60,000 trees according to Techcrunch. The company made a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation that month in recognition of the positive environmental impacts of electronic signatures.^[23]

Products and Structure

DocuSign services are offered either by subscription or for free as an app. Signatures and documents are encrypted, then treated with a hash to reveal whether the document has been tampered with or compromised.^[24] The software works with major Internet browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Apple Safari.

DocuSign Professional emails recipients an electronically signed document requesting review of a document after it is uploaded. Each party must agree to complete business electronically, review the document and apply a signature. Signatures may be added from a stored copy of a signature or generated automatically by the software. The service provides more than signature services; it allows complete “straight-through processing,” including data and forms management, work flow, signer identity proofing, remote signing and embedded, or in-person signing, plus robust data delivery and document management capabilities. Phone confirmation and background checks are offered as premium services.^[25]

DocuSign and the National Association of Realtors developed DocuSign for Real Estate in 2009 to expedite real estate transactions and reduce closing costs.^[26] DocuSign developed Workgroup to provide document management services for any department within a business. These services include transaction control, data collection, workflow management and templates for business documents along with contracts.^[27] DocuSign also designed Enterprise as a scalable solution for document management capable of automating manual documentation, managing data and allowing electronic signatures.^[28]

DocuSign Ink

DocuSign released its mobile app DocuSign Ink in November 2011.^[29] It is available for free and runs on Apple iOS, Google Android and Windows Mobile operating systems. DocuSign Ink allows users to sign and annotate documents by attaching a stored signature, which may be created in graphic design software, captured from an image of a paper document or selected from a variety of prefabricated signatures based on the user’s legal name.^[30] The saved signature can be applied to PDFs, word processing documents and images. To complete a document, participants apply their signatures and send completed documents to cloud storage for review.^[31]

DocuSign Ink achieved 100,000 downloads in the first month of its release. The Apple App Store ranked DocuSign Ink as the second most downloaded productivity app in 2011.^[32] In 2012, the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) named DocuSign Ink the “Consumer Product or Service of the Year” after it had tied for first place the previous year.^[33] ZDNet listed the app among “Must Have” iPad apps in 2012.^[34]

Awards and Recognition

Professional Reviews

In October 2011, Mashable listed DocuSign as one of the “5 Ways Apps Make Salesforce Even More Valuable." ^[35] The company’s DocuSign Pro received four out of five dots from PC Magazine in September 2011 and praised its tagging system, auditing trail and simple interface.^[25] In March 2012, Macworld noted that DocuSign is a service that has “removed a big hurdle to doing away with the printed page."^[36]

Product Awards

The WTIA awarded DocuSign with the Top Commercial Tech Product or Service in 2011.^[37]

Corporate Recognition

DocuSign’s workplace received recognition as one of the “Hottest Seattle Companies” by Lead411 in 2010.^[38] Seattle Business Magazine also placed DocuSign on the list of the 100 Best Companies to work for in the same year.^[39] In 2012, DocuSign was listed as one of Washington’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and a “Best Place to Work in the Bay Area” by Seattle Business Magazine.^[40]

Deloitte placed DocuSign on the Technology Fast 500 in 2011.^[41]

National ESIGN Day

DocuSign Chief Legal Officer Kenneth Moyle lobbied for the recognition of National ESIGN Day by the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The bill was passed by the United States Congress in June 2010 with the first National ESIGN Day held on June 30 of that year.^[42] Moyle would become the first lawyer admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court by submitting a membership application electronically.^[43]

See also

• LongPen, a remote signing device conceived by writer Margaret Atwood

References

External links

• Official website