Autenti -enabling one-click e-signature

The use of e-signatures has become a reality, both for businesses and among individual clients. Autenti particularly suits the needs of the Digital Natives Generation who prefer mobile solutions and meets every entrepreneur’s most demanding needs. Today, entrepreneurs are looking for savings, optimization, simple and available cloud solutions on a daily basis. Platform solutions are 100% mobile, which is extremely important with the new, hybrid, or remote work model.

Simple e-signature is good enough for many use cases, but only qualified one is a true equivalent of a handwritten signature in Europe, which is a must for some transactions to be legally binding. Autenti is a one-stop-shop platform solution that makes it possible to use all three types of electronic signatures (simple, advanced and qualified) within one process and for each document type.

When we first met Grzegorz Wójcik and Tomasz Plata, co-founders of Autenti, we were impressed by their vision of becoming a European standard in the e-signature market. Initially, we were quite skeptical about the feasibility of this goal since intuitively it feels that the e-signature market is already saturated. However, it quickly turned out that Europe is way different from the US — the most developed e-signature market — when it comes to trust services. We realized that European specifics made it difficult for key US e-signature players to dominate European markets and that there is plenty of space for a player like Autenti.

When it comes to e-signature in Europe, safety, security and qualifications play the most important role, a characteristic that is strengthened by European regulations. Even though there is a unified regulatory framework across EU countries (provided by eIDAS regulation), consumers tend to pick their local qualified e-signature provider rather than foreign certificates regardless of the price and other factors. For this reason, there is no truly pan-European e-signature company. Autenti can be the first one with its disruptive platform that can integrate multiple qualified e-signature and eID service providers. This allows its signatories to pick their preferred qualified certificate from the dropdown — as simple as this.

Autenti makes cross-boarder business as easy as it should be in a harmonized European market. Imagine a large multinational corporate like Raiffeisen Bank International with more than 17M customers across 12 CEE countries. With the help of Autenti, the paperwork in cross-country contracting can be reduced to zero saving everyone's time and helping reduce CO2 emissions by the bank and its customers.

The European eSignature market still has enormous potential as its current penetration is estimated to be at around 8%-15% only, depending on the country. Ultimately, every SME in the EU will need an e-signature solution. We believe Autenti’s platform approach and interoperability of all types of e-signatures in a one-stop-shop solution provides it with an edge over its competitors and will help to fill the gap.

With the support of our co-lead investor 3TS Capital Partners in series B round of €8.5 and existing investors BNP Paribas Bank Polska, PKO Bank Polski, Alior Bank SA, Black Pearls VC and Innovation Nest, Autenti can accelerate its growth and increase their customer base 7 times over the next 3 years. In fact, the young company has already made its initial forays into foreign markets and operates in Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Spain.

Autenti’s products have been proven by thousands of SMEs and numerous blue-chip enterprises. The company has successfully validated its concept in the Polish market and is ready to conquer Europe. We are confident in the continued momentum of eSignature growth in the CEE region and believe Grzegorz Wójcik, Tomasz Plata and their team are ideally placed to capitalize on this momentum.