DocuSign turned a pen stroke into a verb. By 2018, people said they would "DocuSign" a lease or an offer letter. Before it, a contract meant printing, signing, scanning, and faxing, or waiting days for the mail. DocuSign put a bright tab on the page that said sign here, and the deal closed from a laptop or a phone. When it filed to go public, the e-signature was a habit, and DocuSign wanted to own everything around the agreement.

The Real Estate Start

Tom Gonser, Court Lorenzini, and Eric Ranft founded DocuSign in 2003. Gonser had run NetUpdate, a company that built online tools for real estate and mortgages, and home sales ran on stacks of paper. A 2000 federal law had made electronic signatures binding. The bet was that a signature on a screen could be legal, safe, and faster. Sales began in 2005, when the real estate forms maker zipForm built DocuSign into its software.

Fifteen Years to the Bell

DocuSign priced at $29 a share on April 26, 2018, above its range. It began trading on the Nasdaq the next day under the ticker DOCU, and the stock rose more than 30 percent. The pandemic sent the shares soaring in 2020, when signing in person became hard. They fell back as offices reopened. Private equity firms explored a buyout in early 2024, but no deal came. DocuSign is still public on the Nasdaq.

Cover: Young Woman Writing or Drawing, Unknown. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a hand with a quill pen (the signature).