DocuSign Continues Agreement Cloud Expansion With Liveoak Technologies Acquisition

By AIT News Desk On Jul 8, 2020

Deal to accelerate delivery of solutions for remote online notary and other “assisted agreements”

Amid increasing demand for solutions that enable the remote completion of agreements that traditionally required in-person contact, DocuSign announced its acquisition of Austin-based startup, Liveoak Technologies, for $38 million in an all-stock transaction.

The news builds on the companies’ existing partnership, where DocuSign eSignature is integrated with Liveoak’s secure agreement-collaboration platform. Liveoak uses web-based videoconferencing, rich collaboration features, identity verification and other tools to help complete an auditable transaction remotely—and it counts some of the world’s largest financial institutions as customers.

DocuSign plans to leverage Liveoak’s technology and expertise to accelerate the launch of DocuSign Notary, a new product in the Agreement Cloud suite that focuses on remote online notarization (RON)—where audio-visual technology is used to complete a notarial act when the signers and the notary public are in different places.

Slated for early-access availability later this summer, DocuSign Notary will enable notarized transactions via video—something increasingly supported by U.S. states’ legislatures and executive orders. DocuSign Notary will also augment the company’s existing eNotary offering, which enables a notary public to act as an in-person witness to the electronic signing of documents.

As part of today’s news, DocuSign will continue to offer Liveoak’s platform for remotely completing other “assisted agreements”—such as account openings or virtual inspections—that require in-person facilitation and an audit trail.

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“DocuSign is practically synonymous with the electronic completion of agreements from almost anywhere, on almost any device,” said DocuSign COO, Scott Olrich. “But there is an important class of high-value agreements that require the live participation of a notary or other representative. With this acquisition, we intend to bring the DocuSign experience to those agreements too—so signers and those assisting can get business done no matter where they are.”

“Given the state of technology today, people often wonder why they still need to sign any document in-person—and the pandemic has only exacerbated this concern,” said Liveoak CEO, Tim Ramza. “We’ve been working to solve this very issue for years, and we’ve had a strong partnership with DocuSign as a result. By joining forces and fully integrating our solutions now, we can bring the ease and simplicity of DocuSign to the execution of notarized and other complex assisted agreements.”