- General
- November 8, 2020
- 5 minutes read
Esign Scores $151M Series D
“Signature” by Hammer51012 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Esign, a Chinese e-signature services company, has raised $151 million in Series D funding from…
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| “Signature” by Hammer51012 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 |
Esign, a Chinese e-signature services company, has raised $151 million in Series D funding from a group of investors including the Shenzhen Capital Group, Chinese property giant Evergande, Fortune Capital, Fanchuang Capital, and Grand Flight. With the new funding, Esign has now raised nearly $300 million in total from outside investors. The company’s most previous round before now was a $98 million Series C led by Ant Group in October last year.
Esign will put its new capital towards R&D and product development. The company is riding the wave of a growing e-signature industry in China, whereas research firm iiMedia Research estimates that the number of e-signature contracts signed in China will cross 50 billion this year, compared to 27.9 billion in 2019. According to its estimates, the Chinese e-signature industry will soar more than 300% this year.
Esign is a major e-signature company in China, serving over 5 million corporate clients according to the company’s statement. Eventually, the company says it has a plan to “serve one-fourth of the global population”.
Esign as a company was founded in 2002. In its roughly 17 years of existence, over 12.8 billion contracts have been signed on its platform. Overall, Esign is one of the most valuable and funded private technology companies in China and in its case is backed by Ant Group, a major investor in Chinese startups. Recently, Ant was poised for a record-breaking IPO that was set to clinch big profits for its backers but saw its plan shelved after hiccups with Chinese regulators.
