DocuSign has just raised $85m, its largest ever round of funding, and has told CBR where it wants to spend the money.
The electronic-signature security firm has refused to reveal where the majority of cash has come from, simply referring to "large institutional public funds", but has identified the four key areas it wants to invest on the back of a number of high-profile deals.
Those deals include a strategic partnership with Microsoft that covers integration of DocuSign’s e-signature apps into Office 365 – bringing the technology to more than one billion Office users worldwide – and integration with Netsuite.
DocuSign’s Jesper Frederiksen, VP of EMEA, outlined the company’s investment strategy to CBR, which is geared to becoming the global standard for Digital Transaction Management (DMT) – the process through which people can securely conduct document-based digital transactions.
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Further innovation and integration
Frederiksen says: "Our goal is to offer the best possible out-of-the-box integration with all relevant applications and services that produce transactions to be executed and/or workflows to be automated.
"Just in the past two weeks we have announced DocuSign apps will be embedded in Microsoft Office 365 as well as integration with the NetSuite cloud computing platform."
Not only that, but last November it integrated with the Salesforce platform, and when you consider investors include Google Ventures and SAP Ventures, it might not be a surprise if we see DocuSign reach agreements with all the major enterprise cloud platforms to supply its services.
It’s aiming to become so popular, the company is even trying to instigate the use of its name as a verb: "When there’s business to be done, they can just DocuSign it," COO Gordon Payne says of customers.
Hopefully that won’t catch on.
Improved security and availability of platform
Says Frederiksen: "The security and availability of our DocuSign DTM platform is critical, which is why we invest in taking the platform to banking class security and carrier-class availability.
"Furthermore, we continue to enhance our mobile offerings to develop the best possible platform for conducting transactions on the move."
He also confirms DocuSign has upped its encryption, too: "Security has always been a major priority for us. Our customers want their information stored safely and securely, this is why DocuSign has moved to AES 256-bit encryption [basically the encryption with the longest, and therefore most complex, key]."
More focus on specific verticals
While encryption and specifically the ability to sign-off documents and transactions on the move is important for lots of industries, DocuSign hopes to become more widely adopted by adapting vertical-specific solutions.
"We are increasingly investing in specific solutions to meet the needs of verticals such as real estate/lettings, banking/finance, insurance and life sciences," confirms Frederiksen.
International expansion
The US firm wants to use a lot of its raised cash for a rapid expansion. It has bases outside the US, but we’re going to see its international offices given more reach.
The focuses are London, Paris, Australia, Brazil and Japan.
A significant announcement in this regard, made today, is DocuSign’s partnership with French cloud provider OpenTrust, to deliver solutions that are apparently fully compliant with EU law.
