IDG, Sequoia, Hidden Hill lead Series E for China's eSign
China-based electronic signature service provider eSign has raised RMB1.2 billion ($186 million) in Series E funding led by IDG Capital, Sequoia Capital China, and Hidden Hill Capital, an investment arm of logistics platform and fund manager GLP.
Guohai Securities-controlled Sealand Innovation, Guanghzou Investment, and Wendi Capital also came in as new investors, while existing backers such as Fortune Capital and Grand Flight Investment – both of which took part in a RMB1 billion Series D last year – re-upped. Grand Flight is an investment unit of Hong Kong-listed leasing business Far East Horizon.
Founded in 2002 and based in Hangzhou, eSign has expanded from electronic signature services into electronic contract services. It now offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that covers electronic signatures, contract verification and archiving, and online contract management and related legal services.
The company has sought to build out an ecosystem around electronic signatures – for example, a natural language processing tool was introduced to automate business agreements – and the new capital will support these efforts. Hongzhou Jin, eSign’s founder and CEO, said investment would focus on areas such as contract management, document processing, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Customers come from financial technology, healthcare, B2B e-commerce, manufacturing, online travel, and human resources. They include Alibaba Group, Sony, Huaxia Bank, Hikvision, Geely, Toyota Motor, and Sanofi. ESign also works with more than 150 provincial and municipal governments, for which it has created more than 1,500 service application scenarios.
As of June 2020, the company had served more than five million corporate users and 270 million individual users, accumulating 12.1 billion signatures. It was processing an average of 20 million signatures every day, claiming a market share of 43.1%.
Citing a report by iiMedia Research, eSign noted that China’s electronic signature market grew from RMB850 million in 2016 to RMB10.8 billion in 2020. It is expected to reach RMB23.6 billion in 2023.
Zhonglang Dong, a managing partner at Hidden Hill, noted that digitization and smart services will be core capabilities in the next phase of supply chain innovation. “At the same time, electronic signatures, as an important traffic portal in enterprise digital infrastructure, have become a driving force for growth in the B2B enterprise services market,” he said.
ESign’s Series D was led by Shenzhen Capital Group, Evergrande High-tech Group, and Fortune, with additional commitments from Gobi Partners, THE Capital, Grand Flight, and Invention Capital, a VC firm established by a team from Ant Group. The company – which was previously known as TSign – has also received funding from Eminence Ventures and Qianhai Wutong M&A Fund.
Other VC-backed electronic signature start-ups include Bestsign, which merged with industry peer Fadada in 2018.
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