An Arlington tech startup says it wants to take the inconvenience out of finding a notary, launching an on-demand app on the iOS marketplace on Thursday. Called Notarize, the company received $2.4 million in seed funding led by Polaris Partners to launch the product. Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures and other individuals participated in the round.
Backed by talent out of Boston’s tech community, the company is based out of Washington tech accelerator 1776’s Crystal City location.
“This can be a real pain point for people,” Chief Operating Officer Adam Pase said of the process of finding a notary. Notarize was started by Pase, and CEO Pat Kinsel, a Boston-based tech entrepreneur behind location-based social discovery app Spindle. Spindle acquired by Twitter in 2013. Kinsel is also a venture partner at Waltham, Massachusetts-based Polaris.
The idea for Notarize was born after Kinsel had “a really bad experience” trying to find a notary, Pase said.
The company is taking advantage of a Virginia law passed in 2011 that allows commonwealth-certified notaries to complete notarization via live video call. Those documents notarized in Virginia are valid across state lines, the company said, due to the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Pase estimates the company is entering a $30 billion market opportunity since more than 1 billion documents, from fishing and hunting licenses to power of attorney documents, require a notary every year. Customers might include overseas military or State Department officials who need to sign an important document remotely. “There’s built-up demand because no one’s really focused on this. They’re all thinking about the next social media app,” Pase said.
The company says it is the only “on-demand” solution that requires no scheduling, appointment or coordination to connect with a notary 24 hours a day. Pase also said Notarize is the first to offer a proprietary end-to-end software solution for both agents and consumers.
Notarize is not the only company taking advantage of the law. Some companies have begun launching services despite both the notary and the customer being located outside Virginia, said Bill Anderson, vice president of government affairs for the National Notary Association.
For instance, the firm NotaryCam launched in 2012 offering notary services to anyone around the world using electronic verification and a Web cam system. The company says those services are offered on-demand between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. and by appointment during off-hours.
That being said, the availability of the option is still part of a sea change for the industry. Companies are tapping into a still-controversial segment of the notary market, Anderson said. “In the notary industry, the cardinal rule has always been you are face to face with the person,” Anderson said. “There is concern that there will be fraud.”
Some argue online notary services can be more secure because they require more identification and authorization steps. Pase said Notarize offers an encrypted platform that has a robust verification system with forensic analysis of documents. As part of the law’s requirements, the company also keeps a video record of each notarization.
The company has trained 24 notary agents in Virginia to start offering the service across the U.S., Pase said.
