Box Inc acquires Amsterdam’s e-signature startup, SignRequest for €45.6M; here’s what you need to know

Cloud content management company, Box Inc, has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Dutch e-signature startup, SignRequest for $55M (approx €45.6M). Upon the close of the transaction, SignRequest will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Box.

The aim of this acquisition?

Adding e-signatures to its capabilities is a significant step for Box in building out the complete content cloud. Currently, Box offers e-signature functionality via third-party integrations whose support has so far been lacking. With the help of SignRequest’s team and technology, Box will develop Box Sign, it’s e-signature capabilities that will be integrated into Box.

“The past year has fundamentally shifted the way we work, pushing businesses to move critical processes to the cloud. Streamlining digital transactions is integral to digitising business and the e-signature category is ripe for disruption. We’re thrilled to welcome SignRequest to our team,” says Aaron Levie, co-founder, and CEO of Box.

He further adds, “For the past several years, we’ve been building the leading content cloud, enabling some of the world’s largest and most regulated organisations to secure, manage, and collaborate on their valuable information. Adding e-signature with Box Sign extends our vision for the content cloud and will help our customers accelerate their digital transformation.”

Eventually, SignRequest users will get the option to migrate to Box Sign, gaining access to additional (security, compliance, document storage etc.) features from Box’s offering.

What does SignRequest offer?

Founded out of Amsterdam in 2014, by Geert Jan Persoon, Michaël Krens, and Nick Dessens, SignRequest helps users sign documents through its online platform. It offers an e-signature tool that can be integrated with other enterprise tools, including Salesforce, Google Drive, Zapier, and Dropbox.

“The last year has shown us that we can effectively work virtually and that we don’t need to rely on in-person meetings to get business done,” says Geert-Jan Persoon.

Speaking about his startup, Persoon comments, “Our mission is to build the most intuitive e-signature technology in the market and we are very excited to join the Box family to scale that vision in the enterprise. Marrying our powerful and affordable e-signature solution with Box’s enterprise-grade content platform will help digitise more transactions.”

According to the company, nothing will change as of right now, with respect to the services offered by SignRequest. It claims it will continue to offer its services to all its customers and partners as it currently does. .

Box Sign to create the complete content cloud for the enterprise

The San Francisco-headquartered company Box is a cloud content management platform that enables organisations to accelerate business processes, power workplace collaboration and protect their most valuable information. Founded in 2005, Box’s clients include AstraZeneca, General Electric, JLL, and Morgan Stanley.

With this acquisition, Box also announced the launch of “Box Sign”, a new e-signature product, in the summer of 2021. The platform will allow enterprises to digitally sign documents without leaving the Box ecosystem.

Varun Parmar, Chief Product Officer at Box says, “E-signature is a large, high-growth market. With less than one-third of organisations deploying digital authorisation because of cost barriers and legacy solutions, work is slowed down by paper-based signatures. Over 100,000 customers already use our platform to power the way they work, and we believe that by making electronic signature capabilities native to our core offering with Box Sign we will drive incredible value for our customers – speeding up and simplifying workflows, lowering security and compliance risk – while cutting costs.”