REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement under which Box will acquire SignRequest, a cloud-based electronic signature company. Box also previewed Box Sign, an e-signature capability that will be developed on SignRequest’s technology and natively integrated into Box. Box Sign is expected to be included in Box business and enterprise plans, enabling customers to modernize the way they work and digitize important processes, while ensuring their agreements can be securely managed and governed in the Box content cloud.
“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 digitizing business and the e-signature category is ripe for disruption. We’re thrilled to welcome SignRequest to our team,” said Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box. “For the past several years, we’ve been building the leading content cloud, enabling some of the world’s largest and most regulated organizations 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."
“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,” said Geert-Jan Persoon, CEO of SignRequest. “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 digitize more transactions.”
Box Sign to streamline digital transactions
2020 marked an unprecedented transition in the way people live and work. Across every industry, the way businesses need to operate has increasingly moved online. Content underpins nearly all of mission-critical business processes, from closing deals with sales proposals and contracts, to getting new products to market faster with innovative designs and manufacturing specs, to securely onboarding new customers and employees.
More than 100,000 businesses, including 69% of the Fortune 500, already use Box to create, share, and govern their content in the cloud. The addition of SignRequest and introduction of Box Sign will make it easy for customers to have access to simple, secure electronic signatures natively integrated into Box where their content already lives.
SignRequest complements Box’s existing capabilities and its modern, easy to use product fits with Box’s core design principles. Box Sign will inherit Box’s industry-leading security and governance capabilities, ultimately helping customers reduce IT spend, eliminate content silos, and facilitate legal and regulatory compliance.
"E-signature is a large, high-growth market," said Varun Parmar, Chief Product Officer at Box. “With less than one-third of organizations deploying digital authorization 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.”
Box Sign to create the complete content cloud for the enterprise
The Box content cloud provides businesses with a secure platform for managing all of their content in the cloud, making it simple to collaborate from anywhere, automate workflows, and keep their data secure and compliant. With the addition of e-signatures, Box customers will be able to manage the entire content lifecycle in the cloud, turning their valuable content into tangible results. From the moment a file is created to when it’s shared, edited, published, approved, signed, classified, and retained, the entire content lifecycle can now happen in the Box content cloud.
Many of the business processes the Box content cloud drives for customers today will be accelerated by the addition of Box Sign. For example:
- Legal teams will be able to create and finalize contracts within Box, from drafting and co-editing the contract to signing and retaining the agreement with Box Governance, eliminating version control issues and the costs to use third party e-signature tools.
- HR teams will be able to initiate and complete offer letters using Box Relay together with Box Sign, streamlining the hiring and onboarding process for new or seasonal employees.
- Sales teams can initiate customer contracts for signature with Box Sign right from Salesforce, with Box being the secure content layer for everything – from pitch decks to executed agreements.
- Compliance teams will be able to retain and protect executed agreements directly within Box, securing sensitive content with granular access controls and threat detection using Box Shield.
- Marketing teams will be able to securely and easily collaborate with external agencies on confidential ad-campaigns from creating the project brief to the legal-approved statement of work.
“In 2021, organizations will need to develop and implement long-term technology strategies to address the lasting impacts of the shifts we’ve seen this past year," said Holly Muscolino, Research Vice President, Content and Process Strategies and the Future of Work, IDC. “Box’s content cloud will play a key role in helping businesses manage the entire content lifecycle in one secure location.”
Box Sign Availability and Pricing
Box Sign is expected to be generally available in the summer of 2021 and its native e-signature capabilities are expected to be included in Box business and enterprise plans with additional functionality such as e-signature APIs available at an incremental cost. SignRequest will also continue to operate and be available to both current and new SignRequest customers through www.signrequest.com.
For more information on the Box content cloud, Box Sign, and today’s news, visit the Box Blog and join our webinar to be hosted by Box CEO Aaron Levie on February 18, 2021.
Details of the Acquisition
The acquisition is anticipated to close in Box's first fiscal quarter ending on April 30, 2021, subject to customary closing conditions. Box will pay an aggregate purchase price of $55 million. Upon the close of the transaction, SignRequest will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Box. The SignRequest team is expected to join Box and will begin integrating SignRequest with Box to develop Box Sign.
About Box
Box (NYSE:BOX) is a leading cloud content management platform that enables organizations to accelerate business processes, power workplace collaboration, and protect their most valuable information, all while working with a best-of-breed enterprise IT stack. Founded in 2005, Box simplifies work for leading organizations globally, including AstraZeneca, General Electric, JLL and Morgan Stanley. Box is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. To learn more about Box, visit http://www.box.com. To learn more about how Box powers nonprofits to fulfill their missions, visit Box.org.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding Box's intention to acquire SignRequest; the impact of the acquisition on Box’s future e-signature and other product offerings; the expected closing date of the acquisition; the expected benefits to Box and its customers from completing the acquisition and launching Box Sign; the expected timeframe of integrating SignRequest into Box and launching Box Sign; plans regarding SignRequest personnel; the size and potential growth of the market for e-signature products. There are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, including risks associated with Box's ability to complete the acquisition of SignRequest in a timely manner, or at all; the potential impact on the business of SignRequest due to the uncertainty about the acquisition; the retention of employees SignRequest; the ability of Box to successfully integrate SignRequest and achieve the expected benefits from the acquisition; Box's ability to attract and retain new and existing customers to SignRequest and/or Box Sign; delays in the development or release of new product offerings; the failure to timely develop and achieve market acceptance of new products; rapidly evolving technological developments in the market for cloud content and e-signature product offerings; length of sales cycles; the effect of the coronavirus and general market, political, economic and business conditions; and other risk factors set forth in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings Box makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed for the fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2020. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of Box’s Investor Relations website located at www.box.com/investors. Box does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this press release to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.
Any unreleased products, services or features referenced in this press release or other public statements by Box are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Box’s products and services should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.
