Startup Documents Electronic Signatures Policy

The Startup Documents electronic signature Service is an on-demand Service hosted by Startup Documents that enables individual and corporate users to electronically sign, track, and manage electronic documents. For instance, for your convenience, you can electronically sign your formation documents on our Site using our electronic signature Service in order to expedite your filing with the appropriate state entity.

You understand that your use of our electronic signature Service may be governed by the laws, policies, and regulations of individual countries, regions, and industries. You agree that you will rely on independent legal counsel to determine the viability of electronic signatures for your organization and ensure that your use of our electronic signature Service is in conformance with all laws and regulations.

At any time, you may request from us a paper copy of any record provided or made available electronically to you by us. You will have the ability to preview documents prior to signing and you may download and print documents through the system immediately after signing.

Are electronic signatures legal?

Electronic signatures represent a fast and inexpensive way to finalize contracts and conduct business. Startup Documents complies with the US Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (“ESIGN Act”), the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), and the EU’s 1999/93/EC Directive on Electronic Signatures.

How are signatures and contracts authenticated?

Startup Documents’ electronic signature Service has built-in authentication so you always know who signed and when. Any person that signs a document on Startup Documents must have a Startup Documents verified account. To protect all Startup Documents users, all user information is 256-bit SLL encrypted, including usernames and passwords. We also seek to prevent others from accessing or using your account by imposing login authentication when you reopen your browser window and emailing you every time a contract is signed under your account.

How do you know who signed a document?

When you apply your electronic signature to a document on our Site, Startup Documents affixes a unique document identifier to the contract itself and also generates an audit trail in your documents folder. This audit trail contains a unique identifier that can be used by us to identify who signed the document and when they signed it, among other important information.

In addition, Startup Documents is designed in a way to keep your contracts secure and to prevent tampering of the contract during and after the signing process. First of all, Startup Documents implements a single-signer process and you must be logged into the Startup Documents site to sign your document. You may not distribute documents for multiple signers to sign. Documents that require multi-party signatures will be generated in editable Word format so that you and your team have an opportunity to review and completely customize before signing.

Is the service secure?

Startup Documents’ technology verifies that a document has not been modified and enables you to verify the document’s integrity. We ensure a document can only be accessed, read, and executed by the designated user. Startup Documents also hashes internally to ensure each time a document is accessed, it has not been modified outside of our controls. We encrypt all of your statically-stored files and signature information in Amazon’s S3 servers, which are housed in an ISO 27001 certified data center, and restrict physical and employee access to it.

What does the audit trail contain?

Our court admissible audit trail contains a comprehensive digital audit trail that includes:

• Title of document
• Signer name
• Document authentication history
• Where document was signed
• Digital signatures
• Email addresses
• Signer IP addresses
• Chain of custody (i.e. sent, viewed, signed, completed)
• Trusted timestamps
• Completion status

After a document is signed on our Site, you will receive an email notification. You may sign in to Startup Documents and download the signed copy from your “My documents” folder at any time. Additionally, the audit trail that is generated for you details all of the above items as events related to the signing of your specific document. You may view and download this audit trail at any time by signing into your account and accessing it through your “My documents” folder.