February brought us many updates regarding electronic signature. From the launch of DocuSign Version 10.1 SaaS esignature service to participation at multiple conferences to discuss eSign as a speaker or expo participant, DocuSign continues its leadership role in helping you save time and safely send, sign, and manage your documents with confidence.

Ken Moyle to Discuss eSignature at 10th CSO Council Bay Area Event on Electronic and Digital Signatures

We’re pleased to announce Ken Moyle’s selection to a panel at the 10th CSO Council Bay Area event on Electronic and Digital Signatures, March 1st (full day) at Adobe in San Francisco. Ken will be discussing eSigning in the cloud, legal issues of chain of custody, evidence preservation and other related topics.

Announcing the Launch of DocuSign Version 10.1 SaaS eSignature Service

New Customer-Driven Capabilities and Exclusive ESIGN Service Offerings for Adobe PDF, Salesforce CRM and Apple iPhone
Today, we announced our latest innovations in on-demand electronic signature solutions, with the release of the DocuSign version 10.1. This version of our award-winning e-signature service offers unique features and functionality designed to support workflow and productivity.

Don’t Miss Electronic Signature at the National Real Estate CyberConvention and Expo

We’re excited to let you know that Tom Gonser, Founder and VP of Product Strategy for DocuSign, will be a featured speaker with a presentation for Accelerating Real Estate Business With E-Signatures at the upcoming National Real Estate CyberConvention & Expo, February 21-27, 2010.
This online convention means that you may attend all events — without leaving the comfort of your home or office!

Talking eSign at Next Week’s Keller Williams Family Reunion!

New Orleans – What a happening place! Last weekend, The Saints won the Super Bowl. This weekend is Mardi Gras. Next week, DocuSign will be on hand in booth #456 to discuss eSignature with those attending the Keller Williams Family Reunion! We look forward to connecting with many of our current DocuSign customers and meeting with anyone interested in learning more about electronic signature from DocuSign!

Cash in on the Demand for eSignature Services With the DocuSign Affiliate Program

Today’s a big day – we’re announcing the launch of the DocuSign Affiliate Program to enable online businesses to share the benefits of the DocuSign Electronic Signature Services with their online clients and visitors. We’ve extended our reach and shattered expectations with more than 500 affiliate partners joining in the first week of launch.

As Demand for eSignature Services Accelerates, DocuSign Partner Program Expands

Today, we’re announcing the launch of the DocuSign Partner Program, a comprehensive initiative to effectively extend DocuSign’s reach through strategic, referral and affiliate partners. Rapid adoption of DocuSign Electronic Signature Services sparked this new lead referral program to spur partner success. The program is designed to further accelerate the adoption of DocuSign eSignature services.

Network Products Guide Names DocuSign 2010 Hot Companies Finalist

Winners Will Be Honored at Technosium 2010 Hot Companies and Technology Award Presentations and Dinner – Today, we announced our selection as a 2010 Hot Companies finalist by Network Products Guide. DocuSign is the only electronic signature services provider selected as a 2010 Hot Companies finalist.

DocuSign Receives Red Herring 100 Global Award Nomination

Red Herring Reveals the Top Finalists for the Red Herring 100 and Includes DocuSign, the Leader in Electronic Signature Services – Today, we’ve announced our selection as a finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from around the world.

Stay tuned to see what we have coming up for you in March – Ken Moyle’s panel at the 10th CSO Council Bay Area event on Electronic and Digital Signatures, March 1st at Adobe in San Francisco is only the beginning of the developments we have regarding DocuSign and electronic signature!

Today, we announced our selection as a 2010 Hot Companies finalist by Network Products Guide. DocuSign is the only electronic signature services provider selected as a 2010 Hot Companies finalist.

Selected from a global industry analysis of information technology vendors which included established large companies, mid-size and new start-ups around the world, DocuSign has advanced to the finalists stage based on the “4Ps” selection criteria—namely Products, People, Performance and Potential. The coveted 2010 Hot Companies analysis encompasses companies in all areas of information technologies including security, wireless, storage, networking, software and communications.

Companies that are honored with the “Hot Companies” recognition raise the bar higher for their competitors, achieve the highest customer satisfaction and strive to maintain the distinction each year. The “Hot Companies” 2010 evaluation process also assessed candidates for:

• Entrepreneurial spirit
• Seasoned executives with relevant experience
• Clear understanding of the segment of IT market they are currently active in and plan to stay active
• Products and solutions that are positioned to take advantage of the emerging market opportunities
• Well developed revenue-growth model
• Clearly planned expansion strategies

The 2010 Hot Companies winners will be announced and honored at the Technosium 2010 Presentations and Dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on March 18, 2010. DocuSign will be amongst the other key industry players at this event. The executives from finalists will be presenting their company’s 4Ps criteria to an audience of end-users, leading entrepreneurs, other IT companies, venture capitalists, corporate strategists and industry associations. To see the complete list of finalists, please visit www.technosium.com.

DocuSign is pleased to be recognized as 2010 Hot Company finalist,” said Steve King, president and CEO of DocuSign. “This nomination underscores DocuSign’s excellence in helping companies achieve greater success by streamlining business processes, increasing productivity, reducing costs and accelerating revenue though our electronic signature service. As the recognized ESIGN market leader, DocuSign will continue to raise the bar in e-signature services. – Steve King president and CEO of DocuSign

A big thank you to everyone who has enabled us to be the ESIGN market leader as we empower businesses to electronically send, sign and manage documents – securely and with confidence!

Today, we’ve announced our selection as a finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from around the world.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of 1,200. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy and integration into the respective industries. Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring, shares his thoughts:

This year was especially difficult. Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Now we’re faced with the arduous task of selecting the final 100 winners of the award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far.

The judges in the Red Herring 100 award have been impressed by DocuSign’s global strategy and its innovative approach to improving business processes through electronic signature services. Red Herring honored the 100 Finalist companies at its annual Conference.

Being recognized by Red Herring further validates that DocuSign is shaping how business is transacted. Our clients continually tell us that DocuSign provides an immediate positive impact on profitability—from streamlining business processes to accelerating revenue. We are proud to be recognized by Red Herring as a new global technology leader. – Steve King, president and CEO of DocuSign

It’s an honor to be among the 100 finalists for Red Herring’s Global 100 award – thank you to our customers who provide us with feedback so we can provide eSignature services that enable businesses to save time, cut operational costs, streamline business processes and accelerate revenue.

As the industry leading provider of on-demand electronic signature solutions, DocuSign appointed Keith Krach, founder and former CEO of Ariba, as chairman of its board of directors. In addition, Steven R. King, former E*TRADE executive and SaaS industry veteran, was named president and CEO.  The move was initiated as the company scales to meet broad market adoption of its e-signature services. Krach and King join DocuSign during a period of explosive growth, with paid transactions increasing more than 300 percent in 2009 over the prior year.

About Keith Krach

Krach, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, joins DocuSign with an impressive success record, including building and steering three companies to global leadership. In 1996, Krach co-founded Ariba, served as CEO and chairman for six years while taking the company public and building it into one of the fastest growing software companies in history. In 2000, he was honored by Ernst & Young as National Entrepreneur of the Year, and received the Technology Pioneer Award at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Today, Krach serves as the CEO of the investment holding company 3Points, Inc.

I am very impressed with the immediate financial and business process impact DocuSign has on its customers, the fantastic growth it is experiencing, and its tremendous customer base. The business results in 2009 were incredible. I am excited to be part of DocuSign and looking forward to working with Steve King and the DocuSign management team. – Keith Krach, DocuSign Chairman

About Steve King

As president and CEO, King brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in information technology. Most recently, King led venture-backed Virtela and ZANTAZ as president and CEO. Under his seven-year leadership, ZANTAZ grew to become the recognized market leader in SaaS email archiving, and was acquired in 2007 by The Autonomy Group. Prior to these positions, King held a number of executive positions at E*TRADE Group Inc., where he played a key role in growing the company from under $100 million to more than $1.5 billion in revenues. He ultimately became CEO of E*OFFERING, the pioneering online investment bank of E*TRADE, acquired by Wit SoundView Group. Previously, King held senior management positions at the Thomson Reuters Corporation and Ziff-Davis. In 2006, he received the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

DocuSign is clearly leading the e-signature revolution with its vast service offerings, number of users and market share. Matt Schiltz and Tom Gonser have done an exceptional job growing the company to this pivotal stage, and I’m excited to work with this dynamic team. – Steve King, DocuSign President and CEO

Matthew J. Schiltz will assume executive responsibilities for strategic business development. This is a role Schiltz held in conjunction with his responsibilities as CEO and president of DocuSign for the past three years. DocuSign experienced phenomenal growth under Schiltz’s leadership and is well-positioned to maintain dominance in the market.

Key Electronic Signature Milestones

In 2009, DocuSign:

• Received a strategic investment from Second Century Ventures to extend DocuSign’s leadership position in the residential and commercial real estate sector.
• Accepted the honor of being named the official and exclusive provider of ESIGN services for the National Association of REALTORS^® 1.2 million members, under the REALTOR Benefits^® Program.
• Surpassed 2.5 million users and exceeded 53 million signature events.
• Supported more than 20,000 customers ranging across all markets including leaders such as American Airlines, BECU, Comcast, EDGAR^® Online, LinkedIn, Yamaha and many others.
• Delivered more than 480 customer-driven features while concurrently deploying the eSign industry’s only fully redundant data centers supporting high availability and immediate disaster recovery.
• Deployed a 10X upgrade in processing power and storage while consistently maintaining 99.993 percent system availability over the past 24 months.
• Achieved a dominant 73 percent ownership in the SaaS-based electronic signature services market for 2009.

**DocuSign’s estimate based on market share data collected using compete.com and comparing the usage at the leading SaaS vendors’ applications in 2009 calendar year. For more information on ESIGN market leader methodology, click here.

DocuSign services also received numerous accolades and awards including the 2009 Best Partner App of the Year Appy Award from salesforce.com, the 2009 Red Herring 100 Award and the 2009 Product Innovation Award from the Networks Product Guide.

In 2009, DocuSign was named to the “Red Herring 100″ for excellence in entrepreneurship and innovation in North American technology companies from a list of 200 finalists, culled from a list of hundreds of candidates. We were proud to be named one of 2009’s most promising private technology ventures in North America and now have received a Global 100 nomination for the Red Herring Awards for our electronic signature solution.

Thanks to your valuable feedback about our electronic signature and online contract execution processes to enable us to innovate and continuously improve DocuSign’s offerings, DocuSign continues to lead innovation in electronic signature, eSign and digital e-signature services that enable you to electronically send, sign and manage your documents with confidence. Thank you to our global customers who nominated us for this honor – what a way to start 2010!

In Case You Hadn’t Heard…

DocuSign is now the official and exclusive provider of ESIGN services for NAR members under the REALTORS Benefits® Program. We are very excited about this new opportunity and how e-signatures are changing the way REALTORS® do business. If you did not get DocuSign while at the event, it’s not too late! You can sign-up here until December 31, 2009 to take advantage of our special ESIGN Advantage Promotion for REALTORS®

Already a DocuSign customer? Don’t worry! We’ll have all new plans for both new and existing customers in January 2010. You can find us on REALTOR.org.

REALTORS® Conference & Expo Highlights

A Rare Opportunity! 
A few lucky show attendees had the privilege of learning about DocuSign at one of the scheduled in-booth demos by DocuSign founder and VP of Product Strategy, Tom Gonser. Who better to learn about DocuSign than from the company founder? No one knows DocuSign better or is more passionate about how electronic signatures affect the way business is done.

DocuSign Named a “Must-Have” Technology Tool in Two Important Sessions

Road Warrior 
by Shannon Williams King – Broker/Owner, TriBella Realty
For those who attended the Road Warrior session by Shannon, you know she knows her business. Shannon named DocuSign one of the must-have technologies and applications necessary for a real estate road warrior. Ms. King served on NAR’s Strategic Planning Committee for 2007 and 2008 and starting in 2008, is serving on the Young Professional’s Network – NAR Advisory Board. She was also named one of 30 Under 30 in REALTOR® Magazine in 2005. Thank you, Shannon!

For the Road Warrior Giveaway, Maribeth Messineo Peters of Ellen Terry Realtors in Dallas, TX is the lucky winner of a FREE one-year subscription to DocuSign! Congratulations, Maribeth!

Leveraging Technology for Luxury Home Marketing 
by Aaron Wheeler – President & Managing Broker of Oakville Properties
Aaron named DocuSign as one of the technologies and applications necessary to take your real estate business to the next level in “Leveraging Technology for Luxury Home Marketing”. Mr. Wheeler is also publisher of LUXRETECH, the blog about leveraging technology for luxury real estate marketing. Thank you, Aaron!

For those of you who stopped by, we’re glad to have met you. For those of you we haven’t yet met, we hope to meet you soon. We’ll be at Inman Real Estate Connect in New York in January. You can also always catch us on Twitter or Facebook.

We’re always happy to talk e-signatures!

Oh, did you think I forgot? Congratulations to Sabrina H. Lewis, with Royal Realty & Associates! Sabrina won a $500 Visa gift card, for stopping by our booth during REALTORS® Conference & Expo in San Diego.

DocuSign®, the leading provider of on-demand electronic signature solutions! We were honored with an Appy Award at Dreamforce ‘09, salesforce.com’s user and developer conference. We received this recognition for transforming our business with the power of cloud computing.

Appy Award recipients are nominated based on their innovative usage of Salesforce CRM or the Force.com platform in bringing new levels of customer success to their sales, marketing, partner, service, support or IT organizations.

Jim Steele, President, Worldwide Sales and Chief Customer Officer, salesforce.com, shared his thoughts about DocuSign and the honor in the salesforce.com ecosystem:

We were honored to present DocuSign with an Appy Award as testimony to its success. With nearly 68,000 customers, more than 200,000 developers and hundreds of partners, we are continually amazed by the innovation in the cloud computing community.

A special “Thank You” to all of our customers who make us successful by sharing your customer stories and providing us with valuable feedback that enables us to continually improve our electronic signature services. Matthew J. Schiltz, CEO and president of DocuSign shares his thoughts:

It is a tremendous honor for DocuSign to be voted Best Partner App by Dreamforce attendees. We have worked diligently to ensure salesforce.com customers can close deals in the cloud using DocuSign’s electronic signature service straight from their Salesforce CRM deployment.

DocuSign received its award for Best Partner App as voted by the attendees of Dreamforce ’09, from more than 3,000 companies. The seamless eSignature solution, DocuSign allows Salesforce CRM users to quickly manage and send contracts for e-signing from a single workspace. Contracts can be conveniently signed in the cloud and returned within minutes.

DocuSign Electronic Signature and The National Association of REALTORS®

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), America’s largest trade association, represents 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. Last week, NAR selected DocuSign as the official and exclusive provider of electronic signature services under NAR’s REALTOR Benefits® program.

Second Century Ventures (SCV), is the strategic investment arm of NAR, made a strategic investment in DocuSign. As part of the investment, the president of Second Century Ventures and chief executive officer of NAR, Dale A. Stinton, will join the DocuSign Board of Directors.

DocuSign Electronic Signature and Real Estate

During last week’s REALTORS® (NAR) Annual Conference and Expo 2009, Shannon Williams King named DocuSign one of the must-have technologies and applications necessary for a real estate road warrior. Ms. King served on NAR’s Strategic Planning Committee for 2007 and 2008 and starting in 2008, is serving on the Young Professional’s Network – NAR Advisory Board. She was also named one of 30 Under 30 in REALTOR® Magazine in 2005.

Aaron Wheeler also named DocuSign as one of the technologies and applications necessary to take your real estate business to the next level in “Leveraging Technology for Luxury Home Marketing.” He also named Salesforce as a must-have CRM. Mr. Wheeler is the President and Managing Broker of Oakville Properties as well as the publisher of LUXRETECH, the blog about leveraging technology for luxury real estate marketing.

Of course, pairing DocuSign electronic signature and Salesforce CRM helps extend your business processes. We had some exciting announcements at Salesforce Dreamforce Global Gathering:

DocuSign Launches Two New Electronic Signature Products at Salesforce Dreamforce Global Gathering and Cloud Expo 2009

DocuSign for Salesforce 2.0 was showcased in a break-out session at Dreamforce, in which Mike Machado of Yamaha and Brian Frank of LinkedIn shared their successes with DocuSign for Salesforce with DocuSign founder and VP of Product Strategy, Tom Gonser. For more information, take a look at the case studies about Yamaha and LinkedIn.

DocuSign for Salesforce CRM Real-Time Quotes Salesforce.com chose DocuSign as the electronic signature solution partner to launch Real-Time Quotes to Salesforce.com customers. Ken Cavallon, DocuSign Business Development Manager, and Tyler Ziemann, Salesforce.com Senior Product Manager, presented a session about DocuSign for Salesforce CRM Real-Time Quotes.

DocuSign’s Electronic Signature Solution Named Best App for Salesforce at Dreamforce Global Gathering 2009

In addition to the launch of our two electronic signature products, DocuSign won the Best App for Salesforce Appy Award in a voting competition from among more than 3,000 companies who partner with Salesforce.com on the AppExchange. DocuSign CEO Matthew J. Schiltz accepted the award from Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO Mark Benioff and Salesforce.com President Jim Steel.

Thank you to all of our customers who share your customer stories, provide us with valuable feedback that enables us to continually improve our electronic signature services.

From strategic investments and partnerships to new products and awards, excitement around electronic signature continues to build – we look forward to building electronic signature solutions to enable you to electronically send, sign and manage documents securely and with confidence.

After much deliberation over the amazing entries, we’ve decided to select not one, but TWO grand prize winners, each receiving a $500 Visa Gift Card.

Congratulations to Dean Ouellette for telling his story of his experience of signing up for DocuSign. Not only does Dean share how he got started, he explains why he’d do it again:

DocuSign not only helped me get that deal done, they have saved me dozens and dozens of hours of chasing contracts over the last 8 months. I have said it many times, besides my car and Blackberry, it may be the most useful tool I have in my real estate career.

Also, a BIG congratulations to Karen Decker, who used DocuSign to help a US Service Woman who was also a young, single mother buy her first home:

And as for Meghan, DocuSign continued to prove beneficial to closing her transaction. Upon her return she quickly found a house she loved, but also had a few days leave and of course wanted to spend it visiting her daughter, but there were numerous documents which needed to be completed. With the help of DocuSign all necessary files were easily signed and transmitted to the lender and the closing agent while Meghan spent time with family in North Carolina.

Congratulations to the runner-ups:

• Andrzej Niemyjski
• Greg Privitelli
• Stacy Reno
• Troy Vathanadireg
• Socar Chatmon-Thomas
• Chester Hall
• Cherilyn Jones

Each participant shared their unique experience with esignature, from how it helped them save time, improved the service they provided to their clients or otherwise differentiated them professionally. Thank you to all participants in the DocuSign Share Your Story Contest, and congratulations again to our grand prize winners as well as our runner-ups.

DocuSign wants to hear YOUR story!

Did you know that more than 37 million electronic signature events have been powered by DocuSign? There’s a story behind every envelope sent via DocuSign, and we’re kicking off a contest to uncover some of the most interesting anecdotes about how DocuSign has helped you and your business. Our Grand Prize winner will receive a $500 Visa gift card.

We’re also giving away our new iPhone app for the first 10 iPhone users who share their stories. iPhone users, submit your best DocuSign story and you’ll be automatically entered to win the free app and the Grand Prize.

Great! So What’s the REAL DEAL (or “How to Win”)

From Tuesday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. PT through Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. PT, we’re running a blog contest to uncover the best DocuSign story. Simply blog about a specific situation in which DocuSign helped close a deal in jeopardy, saved you money or just made a profound difference to your business. Tell us your story and post it to your blog during the hours that the contest is live. Include links to http://www.docusign.com/ and this blog post. Then let us know your post is live by sending us (”Hey @DocuSign!”) a tweet via Twitter with a link to YOUR blog post and #DocuSignFTW during contest hours. That’s all it takes.

Official Contest Rules:

• Contest is live from Tuesday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. PT through Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. PT.
• Blog entries must be no more than 300 words in length and must be posted on your personal blog. (Don’t have one yet? Go to www.wordpress.com or www.blogspot.com and get started with a free blog!)
• Blogs must be posted during the contest hours of Tuesday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. PT through Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. PT. No exceptions and no whining! The Twitter time stamp is the official time stamp of this contest.
• Tell us when your blog post is live and include the URL by using Twitter to notify us at #DocuSignFTW during the contest hours of Tuesday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. PT through Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. PT. The first 10 submissions by iPhone users will be identified by the Twitter time post. (Not on Twitter yet? sign up for free and get started at www.twitter.com. Become a follower of DocuSign by going to http://www.twitter.com/DocuSign and clicking “follow”!)
• A blog entry without a corresponding Twitter notification #DocuSignFTW and links to “http://www.docusign.com” and this blog post is not a valid entry.
• A Twitter entry without a corresponding blog post, link to said blog post,”@DocuSign” and #DocuSignFTW is not a valid entry.
• The first 10 iPhone apps are for iPhone users only. DocuSign will not subsidize non-iPhone winners.
• DocuSign reserves the right to disqualify any blog entry as it sees fit. Any blogs posts deemed derogatory in nature will be automatically disqualified. Any blog posts containing profanities will be automatically disqualified.
• This offer is for those who are residents of the United States. No purchase is necessary. This offer is void where prohibited by law. DocuSign employees and their families are not eligible. Taxes are the responsibility of the winners.

So basically you must (Or Official Contest Rules In Plain English)

• Publish a blog post of less than 300 words on YOUR personal blog between Tuesday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. PT and Thursday, September 3 at 5:00 p.m. PT. Explain how DocuSign has rocked your world.
• Immediately tweet your blog post URL with #DocuSignFTW to @DocuSign. Ex “Hey, @DocuSign! DocuSign Changed My Life! yourblogposturl #DocuSignFTW”
• Please play nice, have fun, and no whining!

The Grand Prize Winner of the $500 Visa gift card will be notified by September 30 after entries are reviewed by the panel of judges. The first 10 entries from iPhone users based on the time stamp on the Twitter message will determine who wins the iPhone application. (BlackBerry users don’t despair – we’re planning a new BlackBerry application – stay tuned for details!)

Good Luck!!!!