A Word on Our Future: Introducing Proof

I started Notarize in 2015 because a ski accident forced me to realize that, despite technological advancements, many of life’s most important transactions were still not trusted to be handled digitally. Even today, much critical commerce is still conducted on paper with a pen, requiring people to travel to sign documents—a frustrating remnant of the past. How is it that we have the technology to land on Mars, but not to transact sensitive matters digitally in a highly secure and universally trusted way?

Today, I’m excited to announce our vision to solve that problem: Proof, the world’s first identity-assured transaction management platform. With Proof, our mission is to bring trust to every transaction.

Eight years ago, we set out to digitize trust. We launched Notarize to redefine notarization—replacing an outdated and inconvenient experience with something accessible, easy to use, and more secure than paper. We helped advance state laws and industry acceptance, created the remote online notarization category, and achieved many firsts: the first mortgage to close virtually, the first online auto sale, and the first will to be signed online—all performed on Notarize. We’ve served millions of customers and secured more than $185B in real estate closings, accelerating our business customers’ operations by more than 34 million days.

We accomplished this by building a platform that allows customers to connect with a notary at any hour, from anywhere, in less than a second. We built tools for businesses to manage and collect online notarizations at scale, and for notaries to complete perfect transactions while complying with over 4 million rules and regulations. Notarize makes notary services available like any other digital infrastructure—always on and always connected. We save customers an average of 14 days, eliminate virtually all errors that plague 30% of paper notarizations, and save as much as $110 per transaction.

Today, industries run on Notarize. People connect with our notaries 24/7 to sign some of life’s most important documents. We’ve heard many stories from our customers:

• ​Members of the armed services able to execute critical forms for their families while deployed overseas.
• ​Parents abroad needing a notarization for a child to travel home.
• ​Homebound individuals updating financial documentation or wills from home.
• ​Farmers able to sell equipment without long drives into town.
• ​Notaries who value the freedom to work from home and help customers.
• ​Businesses struggling with paper documents or fraud in eSignature agreements, turning to Notarize for secure transactions.

These stories fuel our passion. But we’ve always been more than a notarization company; we are in the business of trust. Notarizations exist to prove you’ve signed something and to protect your signature from forgery. A notarization creates a trusted record, preventing fraud and ensuring critical decisions are honored.

Wouldn’t we want our signature and identity to be secure at all times, even for forms that don’t require notarization? Don’t we want our decisions and records to be instantly trusted? The benefits are clear.

To achieve trust in every transaction, society needs a way to prove it was really you and that you performed an action (e.g., agreed to terms). We need records that are instantly trusted and self-validating. A new type of transactional platform must emerge with these core principles:

• ​Smart execution: A platform that understands state laws, regulatory requirements, and company policies to determine how to execute a legally binding and accepted document. Without an intelligent platform, industries remain unsure of what solution to use for each transaction.
• ​Evidence: A completed document is not enough; you need proof. Indisputable evidence that will hold up in court, ensuring records cannot be tampered with.
• ​Fraud prevention: Every credit card payment is monitored for fraud; using your identity and signature should be no different. Every time you sign, the system should evaluate, “is this really you?” Your identity should be bound to the data with the highest level of cryptography to prevent forgery or tampering.
• ​Built to the highest standards: Platforms handling sensitive transactions must be built, audited, and certified to the highest industry standards, ensuring your identity is protected.

These principles have been the cornerstone of our platform for years, and we continue to advance them with today’s launch of Proof. We’re on a mission to secure all critical commerce in our economy because digital transactions are more secure, auditable, and trustworthy than pen and paper.

Proof is our most significant product launch to date, representing years of innovation and realizing a vision we set years ago. We’re advancing the online notarization category by raising the bar and introducing industry-leading fraud prevention features.

We are also introducing a new way to transact, called a Proof. It’s an identity-assured transaction where a NIST IAL2 level identification can be bound to every signature, even for documents that don’t require notarization. A Proof locks in legally binding evidence to create trusted records and is a smart transaction executed according to applicable regulations or business policies.

Notarize will continue to exist as the largest, fastest, most trusted network of online notaries. It will still power experiences for partners like Adobe and FedEx and allow people to connect with a notary instantly.

Notaries are trust agents, authorized to do much more than most people realize. For example, you can sign your I-9 with a colleague or a notary. As trained, background-screened agents of the state, notaries are entrusted in many ways. With Proof, we are bringing notaries into the heart of digital commerce. When there is a problem with digital identity, notaries can verify identity and act as trusted referees. We are launching the world’s safest and fastest trusted referee platform, giving notaries unprecedented tools to certify identity. Proof is the first solution that provides automated identity verification with humans in the loop. When ID verification can't confirm an identity, a user is connected with a trusted referee to complete the process. This enables businesses to digitize identity with enterprise-grade SLAs without needing staff to manually review IDs.

The Notarize Network is evolving toward a marketplace of trust transactions, from basic notarizations to real estate closings, custom business transactions, and now identity verifications. Notaries have always facilitated critical commerce, and we will continue to honor them by creating new opportunities to serve the world.

The world has changed since I started Notarize. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence and the proliferation of machine-generated content, it’s never been harder to know who created what and if it’s authentic. The need for trusted records provably tied to the creator’s identity has never been greater.

We want a world where everyone has confidence that their identity and signature are secure and cannot be easily forged. Signing anything should be instantaneous and frictionless, easier than swiping a credit card. When someone tries to forge your signature, real-time fraud monitoring should protect you, your home, and your life savings. That is what trust in the digital age looks like.

With trust in every transaction, the speed of commerce will accelerate. Transactions will take seconds, not days or weeks. We will help the environment by eliminating the paper that circulates globally every year. Ultimately, customers will prefer digital transactions over pen and paper because they are safer and more secure.

When it matters, get Proof. This is the future of a fully digital economy. I hope you all join us to shape this future together.

Pat Kinsel, CEO & Founder