Notarize Raises $130M Series D to Enable Trust in the Digital Age

Today Notarize is announcing an important milestone - our Series D funding, which will fuel growth and help Notarize fully digitize life’s most important transactions. Fintech-focused VC firm Canapi Ventures led the round and is joined by Alphabet’s independent growth fund CapitalG, Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo, True Bridge Capital Partners and existing investors. We’re honored to welcome Canapi Ventures Partner Neil Underwood to Notarize’s Board of Directors. 

There are decades when nothing happens and then there are years when decades happen. We are in the midst of such a moment right now. Years worth of change and innovation has been compressed into mere months - and Notarize is on the forefront of that rapid change. In 2020, the world rushed to digitize. Transactions that used to happen in person now needed to happen online. Online commerce ballooned, and industries from real estate to automotive, from financial services to family law, needed to transition how deals get done. Yet these deals cannot be completed without trust and, importantly, identity verification.

Trust and Verification - Delivered at the Speed of the Internet

Notarization exists to reduce fraud and create certainty and trust in the underlying document. In some cases, states mandate notarization to protect consumers, and in others, industries adopt notarizations to reduce fraud. In every case, the notarial act creates a trusted, durable document. When furnished in court, a notarization is evidence that the proper person signed, understood, and consented. Entire industries’ risk models are based on the legal standing of notarized forms and the expectation that they will be upheld in court. With the notary acting as an independent witness, Notarize is validating identities while creating richer records and fundamentally improving the trustworthiness of notarized documents. 

Moving the notarization online while preserving the legal standing of the notarial act has taken years of effort and Notarize is proud to have created and validated the market, leading the passage of legislation in 30 states, countless federal and commercial approvals, and the broad adoption of industry standards. We’re also proud to offer the most reliable, usable, and compliant platform, ensuring that online notarizations can be offered instantly online with the full legal effect that industries demand. Notarize’s instant access and always-on availability, combined with the legal standing of a valid notarial act, is leading to massive market expansion. 

Notarize sits on the frontlines of digital transformation, bridging the promises of new online services with the realities and requirements of high risk and regulated industries. Notarize isn’t just a notary company - we’re the ‘last mile’ of multi-billion-dollar businesses and models that promise an Amazon-like online checkout experience. Notarize allows these transformative online businesses to bring trust and identity verification into their processes at a scale never before seen online. 

With our $130M Series D financing announced today, Notarize will continue its mission to ensure every industry can trust their most critical transactions, notarized and beyond. And we will expand our platform to move countless more transactions online for the first time ever. 

The Journey Hasn’t Been Easy

Creating the online notarization category and getting here has been no small feat and like many pioneers before us, has come at great effort and expense. Building a platform to comply with a matrix of more than four million federal, state, county, industry, and commercial rules has been equally challenging, but critical. There is no universal online notarization experience and there are no shortcuts to providing a service people can rely upon.

Like most startups, our resolve has been tested. In 2019, critical financing fell through. We were forced to reduce the size of our team and refocus our efforts. We closed bridge financing that year, funding the company one quarter at a time. We focused.  We won new deals and scaled customers. We improved our margins in 2019 from -110% to 1% and went into 2020 doing exceptionally well, poised for hyper-growth. We raised our Series C in March of 2020, mere days before the reality of a global pandemic became apparent. Since then, we grew revenue by 600% and our margins will exceed 60% this month, only possible because of the foundation we’ve built over the years. Many startups put off the hard work of building a real, durable business, and I’ll be forever grateful and proud of the Notarize team’s efforts to build – especially through some of the most challenging scenarios at work and at home during a pandemic.  

This Series D financing is a recognition of the team’s hard work and the incredible opportunity Notarize has to enable trust in online commerce. When the auto, insurance, private wealth, banking, mortgage, legal, medical, and other industries are asked, “How will you move that online?,” the answer is Notarize. 

Industry-leading innovators are already partnering with Notarize to rewire how they and their customers work, and Notarize now works with more than ten of the Fortune 100 and market-leaders, including Adobe, TIAA, Dropbox, Redfin, Zillow Group, First American Financial, Transamerica, Stripe, and JD Power & Associates. 

We are proud to have the support of new investors and we are grateful to returning investors who continue to champion what we have built and support us in meaningful ways. We’re only getting started as we redefine trust in the digital age. 

– Pat

Interested in working with us? We’re fully-remote and hiring for key roles across the U.S.

Are you a notary who’d like to join our Network? We’d love to hear from you.