DocuSign

DocuSign is a San Francisco- and Seattle-based company that provides electronic signature technology and Digital Transaction Management services for facilitating electronic exchanges of contracts and signed documents. 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 as well as the European Union’s Directive 1999/93/EC on electronic signatures.

The company has raised $443 million in financing since its founding in 2003.

History

Tom Gonser founded DocuSign in 2003 when he left NetUpdate and purchased certain DocuTouch assets and started DocuSign. As it turned out, none of the DocuTouch technology or code base was used to build the first versions of DocuSign.

The firm began sales in 2005 when zipForm (now zipLogix) integrated DocuSign into its virtual real estate forms. Mock trials featuring licensed attorneys and real judges highlighted the admissibility of DocuSign contracts in court based on encrypted audit logs of signature events as well as the impossibility of changing contracts.