DocuSign has acquired Liveoak Technologies in an effort to offer remote notarization services to customers.

As an unprecedented number of individuals are working from home and companies are conducting business remotely, the ability to sign documents remotely is more important than ever. Unfortunately, notarization is a weak point in the process, often still requiring in-person dealings.

DocuSign is working to change that with the acquisition of Liveoak. The two companies previously had a partnership, integrating DocuSign’s eSignature into Liveoak’s platform. With the acquisition, DocuSign will use Liveoak’s technology to rollout DocuSign Notary, a remote notary service that will use video concerning to enable legally binding, notarized transactions. State laws are increasingly recognizing these kind of agreements, and the pandemic is likely to drive further adoption.

“DocuSign is practically synonymous with the electronic completion of agreements from almost anywhere, on almost any device,” said DocuSign COO, Scott Olrich. “But there is an important class of high-value agreements that require the live participation of a notary or other representative. With this acquisition, we intend to bring the DocuSign experience to those agreements too—so signers and those assisting can get business done no matter where they are.”

“Given the state of technology today, people often wonder why they still need to sign any document in-person—and the pandemic has only exacerbated this concern,” said Liveoak CEO, Tim Ramza. “We’ve been working to solve this very issue for years, and we’ve had a strong partnership with DocuSign as a result. By joining forces and fully integrating our solutions now, we can bring the ease and simplicity of DocuSign to the execution of notarized and other complex assisted agreements.”

DocuSign Notary is the next evolution of electronic document signing, and will help address one of the pain points associated with contracts and transactions.