Armed with $2.7 million of angel investment and a target market of “the world,” Concord Worldwide Inc. today is introducing a full-feature contract management service that it’s giving away for free.

The software-as-a-service offering includes features that are typically limited to paid products, such as online document editing, version control, attachments, and discussion. Concord also provides unlimited legally binding e-signatures, audit trails, deadline alerts and other features in the free package.

Enterprise customers can pay a monthly fee to get more complex options like contract templates, workflow management, compliance reporting and support for subsidiary companies.

But the basic free Concord suite should be good enough for the vast majority of small business and individual users, according to CEO. Matt Lhoumeau. “We’re the first company to offer free and unlimited signature and contract management,” he said.

Contract management can be a headache for companies that employ large numbers of freelancers as well for businesses like agencies and speakers bureaus that have to maintain unique contracts for each client. Many small organizations manage contracts on spreadsheets or even on paper because commercial packages are either too complex or expensive.

Lhoumeau said he got the idea to build the product when he was working at a $5 billion company and was asked to renegotiate 500 contracts. The project took six months and “I spent one month just looking for copies of the contracts,” he said.

With offices in France and San Jose, Concord has been building awareness through word of mouth and has amassed a base of about 20,000 users of the free offering. It does have some paid clients as well, Lhoumeau said, including France’s Credit Mutual with “hundreds of seats.”

The company claims that electronic signatures are obtained five times faster, contract approvals and negotiations are sped up by 70 percent and compliance requirements are improved by 90 percent with the use of contract management.

Licensing for the commercial service starts at $15 per month.

Photo by NobMouse