Digital notary startup Notarize announced Thursday that it has facilitated more than $1 billion in online real estate transactions, marking a major milestone for a company that wants to completely digitize a process that has long been mired in reams of physical paperwork.
Notarize first launched a service that provides entirely web-based closings in late 2017. In the 18 months since, the company has been involved in more than 5,000 online closings, pushing it over the $1 billion mark. Growth at the firm is also accelerating: according to a statement Thursday, Notarize expects to have facilitated another $1 billion in real estate deals in just the next four weeks alone.
Pat Kinsel
Pat Kinsel, Notarize’s founder and CEO, described Thursday’s announcement as “incredible.”
“What was once science fiction is now occurring around the clock on the Notarize platform,” Kinsel said in a statement. “The era of the online closing is officially upon us.”
Boston-based Notarize arranges video calls with notaries, who can go over and (as the company’s name suggests) notarize documents with customers. The company has also expanded into other services, such as online refinancing, and offers products geared toward real estate agents, loan officers, title agents and others.
Notarize said Thursday that it is currently used by “more than 1,000 title agents and the fastest growing national lenders.”
Businesses in other industries that require notarized documents, such as law or finance, can also use Notarize. The company described itself Thursday in a statement as the “first platform to empower thousands of people each day to sign and notarize documents online. From adopting a child to buying a home, Notarize builds trusted products and services that support life’s most important moments.”
Prior to hitting the $1 billion milestone, Notarize had achieved a number of other headline-grabbing successes as well. A year ago, for example, the company raised $20 million from a variety of investors, including big industry names such as Realogy and Lennar. That pushed the company’s total fundraising haul to $31 million.
In November 2018, Notarize also partnered with Redfin so that the online brokerage could offer entirely digital home closings. A Notarize spokesperson declined to say how much of the $1 billion milestone came from the Redfin partnership, but did note that the company also maintains relationships with other real estate firms such as Realogy and United Wholesale Mortgage.
However, the deal with Redfin appears to be going well; in a statement, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said that “Notarize is taking a step towards making real estate markets more liquid, so it’s easier for people to move to better neighborhoods, better job prospects and a better life.”
Kelman also said that Redfin has been able to close real estate deals across three continents via mobile phone thanks to Notarize’s technology.
“The people buying and selling homes love the convenience of remote online notarization,” he added.
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