Business

DocuSign buys Liveoak Technologies for $38 million to offer online notarization

Liveoak's technology may accelerate solutions for remote online notary and other "assisted agreements"

DocuSign headquarters in SOMA district. Photo: Shutterstock
  • Amid the pandemic, remote completion of agreements that traditionally required in-person contact are very required;
  • DocuSign’s new product may ease the notary requirement during social distancing period by allowing it to happen online along with the eSignature.

DocuSign announced it has acquired Liveoak Technologies for around $38 million in an all-stock transaction. DocuSign’s existing eNotary service doesn’t support remote notarization, but now this is about to change. The company plans to use Liveoak’s technology to accelerate solutions for remote online notarization and other “assisted agreements” with a new product: DocuSign Notary.

The new product may be released by the end of the year and may ease the notary requirement during the social distancing period by allowing it to happen online along with the eSignature. The announcement comes at a time that DocuSign and solutions that enable the remote completion of agreements that traditionally needed in-person contact are very required, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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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. We’ve been working to solve this very issue for years, and we’ve had a strong partnership with DocuSign as a result

Tim ramza, CEO of Liveoak

According to the company, “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.

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DocuSign was already a partner to Liveoak and now it 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, said the company at its investors website.

DocuSign is practically synonymous with the electronic completion of agreements from almost anywhere, on almost any device, 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.

Scott Olrich, COO OF docusign
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