Electronic signature provider DocuSign Inc. today announced that it is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or about 700 employees.

The company stated in a regulatory filing that the job cuts will support its “growth, scale and profitability objectives.” The layoffs, which follow an earlier workforce reduction in September, are set to be completed by July 31. It expects to incur a charge of between $25 million and $35 million in connection with the latest job cuts.

“The restructuring mainly impacts our worldwide field organization,” DocuSign said in a statement to CNBC. “This action allows us to reshape the company to more effectively position us for profitable growth, while freeing up resources for investments.”

San Francisco-based DocuSign operates one of the world’s most widely used electronic signature services. It has more than 1.3 million paying customers, including 19 of the 20 largest technology companies on the Fortune 500 list. It says more than 1 billion users rely on its service to process contracts.

To support revenue growth, DocuSign has in recent years expanded beyond the electronic signature market to adjacent segments. It acquired multiple startups as part of the effort and launched several new products. 

In 2019, it introduced Agreement Cloud, a cloud platform that companies can use to store agreement templates and prepackaged contractual clauses. The platform also offers a number of automation features. Document Cloud users can automatically add business data from internal company applications to contracts, as well as create workflows that collect signatures without manual input.

Alongside Document Cloud, the company offers a tool called DocuSign for Salesforce. It enables sales teams to create contracts directly in Salesforce’s customer relationship management platform. The company also sells several other software tools, including a product called DocuSign Click that helps with tasks such as asking users to accept an application’s terms of service.

DocuSign experienced rapid growth in the years following its 2018 initial public offering. The company’s annual sales jumped from $381.5 million at the end of its 2017 fiscal year to $2.1 billion in 2021. However, its growth began slowing in the quarters leading up to today’s round.

In its most recent earnings report, DocuSign posted revenues of $645.5 million for its fiscal third quarter ended Oct. 31. That represents year-over-year revenue growth of 18%. The same time 12 months earlier, it posted 42% revenue growth.

DocuSign faces competition from multiple companies in its core electronic signature market, including Adobe Systems Inc., Box Inc. and a number of smaller players. Nevertheless, the company believes it has significant growth opportunities ahead. It told shareholders in December that its total addressable market is worth an estimated $50 billion.

That same month, DocuSign stated it was expecting to generate between $637 million and $641 million in revenue during its fourth quarter ended Jan 31. For its full 2023 fiscal year, which will end next January, the company is projecting revenues of about $2.49 billion.

Photo: DocuSign