Galaxy Digital Leads $5.5 Million Round for Contract Management Startup

Digital contract management startup Clause has raised $5.5 million in a Series A round led by crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital.

The funding round also saw investment from electronic signature pioneer DocuSign and Galaxy Digital's EOS Venture Capital Fund, which is backed by EOS blockchain maker Block.

Founded in 2015, Clause offers blockchain-based solutions to facilitate the creation, storage and maintenance of digital contracts for businesses.

"It's blockchain-agnostic and also blockchain-independent. What we mean by that is you can run Clause without the blockchain infrastructure at all. You could just have a contract that you sign using an e-signature service that then initiates a payment through Stripe or PayPal that you connect to that agreement."

At the same time, Hunn says there are several unique benefits to facilitating digital contract execution on a blockchain.

Namely, using a blockchain creates immutable audit trails for contract performance.

"One of the biggest problems with contract management today is that you really have no visibility into the events that occur under a contract after the point of signature," Hunn said.

Today's announcement of Clause's Series A is not the first major fundraising round for the company.

Back in 2017, the startup raised just over $2 million from lead investors BN Capital at Lerer Hippeau and London-based Seedcamp, which both participated again in the Series A. Galaxy Digital's Greg Wasserman and Mike Dinsdale will both be joining Clause's board of directors.

"One of the big innovations we're working on with DocuSign is the ability to extend DocuSign functionality from not just e-signature but also to perform other events you may want to do within DocuSign [natively]."