Morning Report: DocuSign Releases New Product Growth Numbers, Highlighting Its Customer Count

Morning Report: This morning Docusign released a number of new metrics for its business. The figures aren’t financial, directly, but indicate that the company’s growth continues apace.

At a dinner in between the Financial District and North Beach, newly instated Docusign CEO Daniel Springer released a grip of new performance results for the unicorn. The release comes during the company’s “Momentum” conference in San Francisco.

Docusign is a unicorn, reportedly sporting a value in the billions. The company has raised over $500 million to date across a host of rounds. It underwent a public CEO change when Keith Krach, now its Chairman, announced that he would step down. Springer was hired this year.

So what’s new? Here’s what the company announced:

• It has more than 300,000 customers;
• 300,000 new users “join [its] platform every day.” According to the company, that figure represents “135 percent year-over-year growth.”

Like anyone and everyone else keeping tabs on the current IPO cycle, I hoped for more hard financial numbers, but there is some moderate sense to disclosing the sort of thing that Docusign did.

How do we figure? Mostly that revenue can be viewed as a result of usage, and therefore not the best leading indicator of growth. If that sounds oddly generous, don’t take my word for it. Here’s Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as quoted by an executive in his company, reported by Business Insider:

“‘Revenue is a lagging indicator, usage is a leading indicator,’ Nadella likes to say, according to [CVP Brad Anderson].”

The synthesis here is quick: If DocuSign is seeing the growth that it is today, this far into its corporate history, it hints that revenue at the firm, often flagged as an IPO candidate, continues to rise. Turning that around slightly: if DocuSign’s revenue is flat as its usage grows, good luck.

During the same discussion, Springer noted that a goal is improving DocuSign’s financial health, directly highlighting efficient sales and marketing spends, among other changes that have been made since he took over in January.

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