Tell us about you.
The mission of sign.online is to support global mobility by bringing Estonian Gold-standards in digital signing to the rest of the world. Our
sign.online also offers
Tell us how your startup is changing the world.
Everyone deserves digital mobility. Digital signatures seem to be the only field where the law is ahead of every day reality: With the eIDAS regulation there is a legal framework for digital and electronic signatures in place across the European Union since 2013. But still the most common practice of signing contracts across countries in Europe is on paper.
sign.online offers fast, simple and safe web-based solutions to transform the practices of business, government, and individuals from paper to digital. Instead of handwritten signatures, sign digitally on our open digital singing platform. Do away with manual paper workflows and bottlenecks by digitizing your contract management systems, procurement processes, data collection, and review processes.
What sets you apart from the competition?
Founded by three Europeans and e-residents of Estonia, sign.online differentiates itself from its competitors by offering its digital signature web app to anyone in the world on a pay-per-use basis without needing to register or subscribe. Being registered in the EU, sign.online complies with GDPR and eIDAS regulations and is also on track to only store data in Europe in the near future.
When sign.online launched in 2022, it broke the world record for fastest company incorporation in a time of 15 minutes 33 seconds onstage at London Tech Week. It has stayed agile ever since, working with a lean team, focusing on improving the features and security of our signing platform, and offering turnkey digital transformation solutions.
What does it mean for you to be in the Momentum 10?
CEO and Co-Founder of sign.online Martin Nørgaard Gregersen put it best:
“In the world of technology, some moments stand out as powerful affirmations. They tell you that the complex problems you’re tackling and the vision you’re pursuing resonate not just within your team, but with the wider tech community. For us at sign.online, being a Momentum 10 startup in Tallinn is exactly that kind of moment. It’s an achievement we are incredibly proud of. A huge thank you to everyone who voted and who supports our journey.”
And one more thing - Tallinn, Estonia, isn’t just our headquarters; it’s part of our DNA. This city is a living blueprint for a society built on digital trust. Being recognized here, in a global hub for digital innovation, feels particularly special. It reinforces our belief that secure, accessible, and globally interoperable digital identity is not a niche concern. It is the future of how governments support citizens and provide public services and transactions digitally, securely, and seamlessly.
What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to set out for this mission?
What we love most about our team is their shared conviction that digital infrastructure should be a right, not a privilege. As three Europeans who chose to become e-residents of Estonia, we've experienced firsthand how transformative digital identity and seamless electronic signatures can be. This isn't theoretical for us—we've lived in the frustration of paper-based bureaucracy and the liberation of Estonia's digital society.
Our team brings together expertise in digital governance, compliance, and software development, but more importantly, we share a genuine frustration with the status quo. Despite Europe having a legal framework for digital signatures since 2013, most people still default to paper. That gap between what's legally possible and what's practically accessible drives us every day.
We foster innovation by staying lean and agile—just as we broke the world record for company incorporation in under 16 minutes, we've maintained that startup velocity in how we develop, iterate, and respond to client needs. Everyone on our team has a voice in shaping our platform and solutions, because we know the best ideas come from those closest to the problems we're solving.
Looking back, what milestone was the biggest turning point for your startup?
While breaking the world record for fastest company incorporation in 2022 gave us incredible visibility and validated our "move fast" philosophy, the real turning point came when we secured our first insurance broker client for a turnkey digital transformation solution. That moment fundamentally shifted our understanding of product-market fit as we began rebuilding our backend on European AWS cloud infrastructure. We realized that while our pay-per-use web app democratizes digital signatures for individuals and small businesses, the transformative impact—and the revenue sustainability—comes from helping large organizations automate entire workflows. Governments and enterprises don't just need a signing tool; they need someone who understands the regulatory landscape, can integrate with existing systems, and can guide them through digital transformation. This insight led us to pivot our strategy in 2025, doubling down on high-value B2G and B2B solutions while maintaining our accessible web platform. It taught us that achieving product-market fit isn't always about what you initially built—it's about recognizing where your solution creates the most value and having the courage to evolve accordingly.
What’s one valuable lesson you learned this year that you’d pass on to other startups?
Strategic repositioning is not the same as pivoting out of desperation—and timing matters enormously. In 2025, we made the conscious decision to reposition our core strategy toward government and enterprise clients. This proactive move, rather than a reactive one, gave us the breathing room to do it thoughtfully.
The lesson: Don't wait for a crisis to evolve your strategy. When you see where the real value creation is happening, move toward it decisively while you still have resources and momentum. Also, building foundations—whether that's automating processes, team expansion, product development, or security infrastructure—might not feel as exciting as landing big deals, but these investments compound. The work we did in 2025 strengthening our platform security and expanding our capabilities will enable the growth we're targeting, not just support it.
And perhaps most importantly: stay true to your mission while being flexible about the path. Our goal has always been to bring digital mobility to everyone. We're learning that sometimes the fastest way to democratize technology is by transforming the institutions that serve the most people.
How do you envision your industry evolving in the coming years, and how will your startup stay ahead?
More and more countries are introducing digital identities for their citizens and switching from paper to digital methods of signing and providing public services. Some of the more future-thinking countries are even looking at how they can use "Agentic AI” to take a more proactive approach in their dealings with citizens.
sign.online is thus perfectly situated as an intelligent process automation expert to ease the transition of enterprise and government workflows from paper to digital and eventually to partially or even completely automated agentic states!
How do you or your company intend to bring forward the Momentum 10 inspirations in 2025?
For sign.online, being recognized as a Momentum 10 startup in Tallinn comes at a crucial moment in our journey. As we put the finishing touches on our strategic growth plans for the next few years, acknowledgement of our trajectory motivates our team, energizes our mission, and accelerates our next steps.
We’re more committed than ever to rolling out new tools, expanding our library of over 40 global signature methods, and further developing turnkey solutions for business and government clients. By focusing on such high potential clients, we aim to target our product and the value it brings to those who can benefit most in terms of time saved, costs avoided, and trust gained. This way, we aim to grow our revenue stream over the next 12 months, which will in turn support our efforts to further scale.
What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2025?
sign.online has set ambitious milestones to target the government sector over the next 12 months. Our aim is to advise public sector clients across Europe on digital transformation and implement digital workflow solutions, as the EU prepares to adopt transformative smart wallets and member countries increasingly switch from paper to digital. The government IT services market represents a significant untapped revenue opportunity for sign.online and for digital transformation more broadly.
Government agencies face many challenges when managing contracts, transactions, and consents with their citizens and stakeholders. Besides the time, costs and paper needed, citizens have come to expect secure, digital options for day-to-day services from their public authorities. sign.online has the tools and experience to address these challenges and can tailor solutions to fit the needs of both the authorities and their citizens.
2024 has been crazy, with all the new techs, and all the geopolitics fluctuations. What are the impacts of these to your startup, and to your industry as a whole? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.
We have put a lot of energy over the last year or so into strengthening our platform against emerging digital threats as well as ensuring our data protection practices are rock solid. With all the uncertainty brought by geopolitical fluctuations, we recognize the importance of storing our data in data centers in the European Union. We are currently in the process of implementing this strategy.
About HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year
Startups of The Year 2024 is HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event celebrating startups, technology, and the spirit of innovation. Currently in its third iteration, the prestigious Internet award recognizes and celebrates tech startups of all shapes and sizes. This year, over 150,000 entities across 4200+ cities, 6 continents, and 100+ industries will participate in a bid to be crowned the best startup of the year! Millions of votes have been cast over the past few years, and many stories have been written about these daring and rising startups.
The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company Newspage.
Visit our FAQ page to learn more.
Download our design assets here.
Check out the Startups of the Year Merch Shop here.
HackerNoon’s Startups of The Year is a branding opportunity unlike any other. Whether your goal is brand awareness or lead generation, HackerNoon has curated startup-friendly packages to solve your marketing challenges.
Meet our sponsors:
Wellfound:. Join the #1 global, startup-focused community. At Wellfound, we're not just a job board—we're the place where top startup talent and the world's most exciting companies connect to build the future.
Notion: Notion is trusted and loved by thousands of startups as their connected workspace—from building product roadmaps to tracking fundraising. Try Notion with unlimited AI, FREE for up to 6 months, to build and scale your company with one powerful tool. Get your offer now!
Hubspot: If you’re looking for a smart CRM platform that meets the needs of small businesses, look no further than HubSpot. Seamlessly connect your data, teams and customers in one easy-to-use scalable platform that grows with your business. Get started for free.
Bright Data: Startups that leverage public web data can make faster, data-driven decisions, giving them a competitive edge. With Bright Data’s scalable web data collection, businesses can grow from a small operation to an enterprise by harnessing insights at every stage.
Algolia: Algolia NeuralSearch is the world's only AI end-to-end Search and Discovery Platform combining powerful keyword and natural language processing in a single API.
