DocuSign, Inc. is an American company headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California, that allows organizations to manage electronic agreements. As part of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, DocuSign offers eSignature, a way to sign electronically on different devices. DocuSign has over 1 million customers and hundreds of millions of users in more than 180 countries. Signatures processed by DocuSign are compliant with the US ESIGN ActELECTRONIC SIGNATURES IN GLOBAL AND NATIONAL COMMERCE ACT
''Federal Trade Commission'' June 2001 and the European Union's

eIDAS eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) is an EU regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the European Single Market. It was established in EU Regulation 910/2014 ...

regulation, including EU Advanced and EU, Qualified Signatures. In April 2018, DocuSign filed for an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

. At the time of the IPO, the largest shareholders were venture investment firms Sigma Partners, Ignition Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures, and former CEO

Keith Krach Keith J. Krach (born April 1, 1957) is an American businessman, and former diplomat. He is the former chairman and CEO of DocuSign. The company went public on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

on April 27, 2018.

History

DocuSign was founded in 2003 by Court Lorenzini, Tom Gonser, and Eric Ranft. Tom Gonser came up with the idea when he was at NetUpdate, a company he founded in 1998, and where he served as

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

. Through its history, NetUpdate had acquired several companies, including an e-signature start-up in Seattle called DocuTouch that had been funded by Timberline Venture Partners, Bill Kallman and Jeff Tung with $4M. Timberline invested another $1 M in the merger into Netupdate.Online Signatures: DocuTouch Introduces DocuSign
''Internet News'' July 11, 2000
''National Mortgage News'' August 22, 2001 DocuTouch held patents on Web-based digital signatures and collaboration. With internal support from Gonser, Lorenzini negotiated the purchase of certain DocuTouch assets from NetUpdate and started DocuSign. Gonser then left the NetUpdate Board to focus on DocuSign full-time. 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.Work Smarter with a Tool Your Mom Can Use
Bui, An ''DocuSign'' July 10, 2009 In January 2007, Court Lorenzini stepped down as CEO and Chairman of the Board and took on the role of Executive Vice President of Business Development. He was replaced as CEO by Matthew Schiltz, who served in that role until January 2010. Steven King replaced Schultz as CEO and moved the corporate headquarters from Seattle to San Francisco.

Keith Krach Keith J. Krach (born April 1, 1957) is an American businessman, and former diplomat. He is the former chairman and CEO of DocuSign.iPhone,

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operati ...

and phone-based user authentication.Docusign launches new tools to entice greater e-signature adoption
Diaz, Sam ''ZDNet''June 30, 2010 DocuSign also began referring to its service as “eSignature Transaction Management”. By the end of 2010, the company handled 73 percent of the Saas-based electronic signature market with 80 million signatures processed.DocuSign Releases Updated Version of E-Signature Software
Hachman, Mark ''PC Magazine'' June 30, 2010

Scale Venture Partners Scale Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that typically leads Series A or Series B rounds. Over the last 20 years, Scale has made over 380 investments in Cloud, SaaS and Infrastructure companies, with over 159 exits, inclu ...

led an investment round of $27 million in December 2010.Washington Startups See Spike in Investing Dollars in December
Kutz, Erin ''Xconomy'' January 28, 2011 DocuSign opened an office in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, in September 2011. In the same year, DocuSign opened an office in

that now functions as its global headquarters. DocuSign signed an agreement with

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

in April 2012 that allowed users to capture signatures and payments in a single transaction with DocuSign Payment.PayPal partners with DocuSign to help businesses collect signatures for online payments
Brian, Matt ''The Next Web'' April 11, 2012 Similar partnerships with

Salesforce.com Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

,DocuSigns Delivers Close it in the Cloud! Integrated ESIGN Solutions to Salesforce
''Reuters'' November 5, 2009 and

Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In add ...

Google Drive Kicks Off with DocuSign Integration
King, Rachel ''ZDNet'' April 24, 2012 preceded the

agreement. In July 2012, ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German pub ...

'' reported that about 90% of Fortune 500 companies had signed up to use DocuSign.At DocuSign, Keith Krach Continues His Epic 16-Year Quest To Reinvent The Business World
Huspeni, Andrea ''Business Insider'' July 13, 2012 On January 10, 2013, DocuSign and

Equifax Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies, along with Experian and TransUnion (together known as the "Big Thr ...

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.Equifax and Docusign Help the IRS Accelerate Forms Processing With eSignature
PR Newswire ''Daily Markets'' January 10, 2013 In October 2015,

Keith Krach Keith J. Krach (born April 1, 1957) is an American businessman, and former diplomat. He is the former chairman and CEO of DocuSign.Forbes Cloud 100 list. In January 2017, veteran

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

executive Daniel Springer was named as the new CEO. Also in 2017, DocuSign was ranked #4 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list. In July 2018, DocuSign acquired SpringCM for $220 million. In March 2019, DocuSign announced the DocuSign Agreement Cloud, a suite of products and integrations for automating and connecting the entire agreement process digitally. This marked the company's transition from their former position in digital transaction management. In February 2020, DocuSign acquired Seal Software for $188 million. DocuSign ranked number 6 on Fast Company's Most Innovative Enterprise Tech Companies of 2022. On June 21, 2022, DocuSign announced that Daniel Springer had agreed to step aside as Chief Executive Officer. Effective immediately, Chairman of the Board Mary Agnes "Maggie" Wilderotter was appointed interim CEO to help the senior executive team drive improved execution in all phases of the company's business. DocuSign announced on September 22, 2022, that Allan Thygesen as its new CEO. Prior to his tenure, Thygesen was an executive at

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

. Thygesen assumed office on October 10.

Funding

In 2004, DocuSign raised $4.6 million in a Series A financing from Ignition Partners and Frazier Technology Ventures.Digital signature firm raises $4.6 million
Cook, John ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' June 14, 2004 In 2006, Sigma Partners led Series A1 and Series B financings, becoming the largest shareholder, a position it held at the time of the IPO, with returns over $700 million."Twelve Years Later, DocuSign’s Big Believer Gets His Glory" Chapman, Lizette 'Bloomberg'
/ref> Between 2006 and 2009 DocuSign raised $30 million that allowed the firm to add corporate clients and process 48 million signatures.DocuSign Scores $5M More
Huang, Gregory ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' May 7, 2009 In July 2012, DocuSign raised $47.5 million in venture funding from investors including

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

; the round later grew closer to $56 million.E-Signature Company DocuSign Raises $47.5M Led by Kleiner Perkins
Ha, Anthony ''TechCrunch '' July 12, 2012 In March 2014, the company announced it had raised $85 million in a new funding round. Though unconfirmed, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' reported the round was based on a company valuation of $1.6 billion. In May 2015, the company announced it had raised $233 million in a new funding round, with some estimating a $3 billion company valuation. In 2018, the company announced plans for an

on the

, with the goal of raising up to $543 million when the company goes public. Neither the original founders nor current CEO Daniel Springer were major shareholders at that time. Former CEO Keith Krach was the largest individual shareholder at 5.5%, about 8.5 million shares at the time of the IPO. Venture capital firms Sigma Partners, Ignition Partners, and now-defunct company Frazier Technology Ventures were the largest shareholders.

Products and structure

DocuSign's services are offered either by subscription or free of charge as a mobile device

app App, Apps or APP may refer to: Computing * Application software * Mobile app, software designed to run on smartphones and other mobile devices * Web application or web app, software designed to run inside a web browser * Adjusted Peak Performan ...

. Signatures and documents are uploaded, then encrypted and a unique hash created. If a signed document is later changed, the hash will not match the information stored by DocuSign if a document has been tampered with or compromised. By 2018, more than 20 billion pieces of paper and 608,000 barrels of oil had been saved by the company through avoidance of wasted printouts for signatures. 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. Phone confirmation and background checks are offered as premium services.DocuSign Pro
''PC Magazine'' September 28, 2011 DocuSign released its mobile app DocuSign Ink in November 2011.
West, Angela ''PC Magazine'' January 23, 2012 It is available free of charge, and runs on

Apple iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

Google Android Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...

and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

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.DocuSign Ink App Enables Electronic Signatures on Android Devices
''Android Mag'' January 26, 2012 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.CES: Another Death Knell for the Fax Machine
Grant, Kelli ''SmartMoney'' January 12, 2012

DocuSign IMPACT Foundation

On 15 March 2015, CEO Keith Krach announced the formation of the $30 million DocuSign IMPACT Foundation to give to charities and transform lives through DocuSign technology.

References

External links