Congratulations to the EchoSign team starting with Jason Lemkin, the founder and CEO! Here is a link to the EchoSign blog that has more of the specific details regarding the transaction. Jason started EchoSign as a Storm EIR with a vision to transform how all contracts get signed using SaaS. Five years later after Storm provided the initial funding, Echosign has grown to almost 1m contracts a month. Great job team Echosign.
EchoSign is a typical Storm early stage investment. Jason put together a note about Storm’s involvement and, in particular, my partner Tae Hea which I included below:
“In my career as a repeat founder, and 4x start-up exec, I’ve pitched over 150 venture firms, taken money from over a dozen — and made money for all of them. Storm was the only one that made a true difference to me as a founder and management team member, and the only one that truly positively impacted the outcome of my company. Due to my prior exits and success, I had options. I chose Storm, and it was one of the best and most important decisions we made at EchoSign.
Storm brought me in as an EIR originally and sponsored a number of my ideas. Once the stars aligned for EchoSign, we closed the Series A round without drama in one week. We had VCs that wanted to invest, and we chose to go solo with Storm in the Series A.
Storm stood by us in the challenging times. First, we were substantially early to a great market — Web 2.0 signatures and contracts. When things took longer to scale up than anticipated, Storm didn’t throw in the towel — they doubled down when they saw our early traction with leaders like BT and GE and knew what that could scale to, even when the absolute numbers were still small. Second, we went through our share of personnel challenges. Storm understood the issues and stood by management’s tough decisions, added value in diffusing tough situations and didn’t kibbitz when they didn’t need to. Third, after the credit crunch hit, many VCs fled to the hills. Storm by contrast never forwarded me the Sequoia memo in 2008. Instead, they said you’re doing well, stay the course — and 2011 will be a great year for tech companies. They were right, and 2011 lead to a great acquisition for us with a terrific acquirer and partner.
Venture capital has changed. Great founders and companies have choices. To me, it’s simple. If you have the skills and the team to run with it, and what you need is some wind at your back — Storm is that wind.”
Thanks Jason! And Congratulations again on a great job at Echosign.