How does digital signing work on Vestd?

The Vestd platform uses two types of digital agreement flows to allow users to accept and sign documents without the need for wet signatures or paperwork. Explore them below.

Contents📋

• Digital acceptance

• Digital signing

• Witness signing for agreements (executing as a deed)

• Resources

 

Digital acceptance

Digital acceptance is used for option agreements and growth share issuances so recipients can accept their documents from anywhere.

The process works as follows:

1. The company signs the Company Terms when registering on the platform.
2. The recipient signs the Participant Terms when joining the platform. They confirm their details, enter their home address, complete a suitability questionnaire, and can then accept their option agreement or growth share issuance.
3. The agreement is executed by offer and acceptance under the relevant platform terms (or Articles, in the case of growth shares).

When an option agreement or growth share issuance is accepted on Vestd, we capture acceptance as a digital signature. This signature confirms that the recipient accepted the agreement/issuance exactly as presented at that moment.

We do this by creating a unique fingerprint of the document and combining it with the verified email address of the signer, along with their IP address and browser details. If an agreement is changed later, the signature will no longer match — this is how we detect alterations.

This digital signature can also be verified independently of Vestd. The current version of the signature can be computed by taking the lowercase MD5 hash of the PDF and passing it to the HMAC‑MD5 hash function with the encryption key set to the verified email address of the accepting user. We also store an encrypted copy of the signature to detect tampering.

For growth shares, there is no physical document. The offer and acceptance form the agreement, and the conditions attached to the growth shares are set out in the Task Agreement, visible in the Growth Share Schedule on the Agreement Summary page and on the recipient’s My Equity page.

 

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Digital signing

Digital signing is different from digital acceptance. Instead of accepting an agreement, users digitally sign a document. Vestd uses DocuSign for the digital signing of share certificates and resolutions.

When a share certificate or resolution is generated:

• Required signatories receive an email from Vestd via DocuSign
• They review and sign the document
• The signed document is saved on Vestd, and share certificates are sent to recipients

Please note: Shareholder resolutions signed via DocuSign have a limit of 99 signatories. If more than 99 shareholders are required to sign, the first 99 (by ownership percentage) will sign via DocuSign, and the remaining shareholders will be emailed the resolution to sign manually. These signatures must then be uploaded to Vestd. Learn more

To save time when issuing multiple share certificates, directors can upload their signatures for automated signing. Automated signing is only available for share certificates and only for directors.

Share certificates require two signatures. If a company has only one director, a specified witness can sign the certificate instead. Automated signing is not available in this scenario.

A specified witness must be:

• Over 18
• Of sound mind
• Not related to the primary signer
• Not a party to the share certificate
• Physically present to witness the signature

Vestd does not currently support witness signatures within the DocuSign flow, so if a witness is required, it is the company’s responsibility to ensure the document is properly executed.

 

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Witness signing for agreements (executing as a deed)

Vestd now supports digitising and executing agreements as deeds, which is helpful if your bespoke agreements must remain deeds or contain forced‑execution clauses.

Executing an agreement as a deed requires four signatures:

• Company signature
• Company witness signature
• Recipient signature
• Recipient witness signature

To enable this, the agreement must include the correct deed placeholders. These allow the platform to collect all required signatures and witness details. The deed flow will only work if the placeholders are present and correctly labelled.

 

Resources:

For more detail on preparing deed‑compatible templates, see:

Can I use my own bespoke option agreements on Vestd?