iSigned.com: A new age of digital storage

Storing a document to last for a long period of time in one physical location is not only difficult, but risky as well. Secure digital file storage is also problematic, with risks of lost external drives, corrupt hard-drives, missing discs amongst the many potential problems. The easier and supposedly safer option is cloud storage, which involves storing the document on a network online for easy, secure access from anywhere.

iSigned.com, launched in July 2010, is an online file storage platform that offers secure, permanent storage for legal records and other important documents with the aim of “helping individuals and businesses reduce risk, reduce costs and become better organised”.

Founded by Gareth Ochse, a photographer and cartoonist with an IT, strategy and management consulting background, and a handful of private investors, iSigned.com has major plans to change the game of cloud storage.

Some of the site’s key features include: Secure, permanent, evidence-quality storage and management of legal and other important documents. iSigned also offers the ability to share documents securely, a full audit-trail and unique folder structures to help individuals or businesses organise their data more effectively. The service also allows subscribers to integrate with their system.

The team at iSigned.com are so confident about the stability of their underlying technologies and platform that they are able to offer developers who use and understand their API the opportunity to earn money from applications they develop which leads to paying subscribers on the system. Subscribers wishing for long-term storage can ask any developer who understands the system to achieve this integration.

The concept of online storage is not a particularly new one, and there is a fair amount of competition in the market. The company reckons that “no other online storage system offers the same document-level features as iSigned.com including evidence-quality document management, military-grade security, secure sharing, and competitive pricing”.

iSigned wants its niche in the market to be the replacement of safety deposit boxes in the offline world, where they can provide storage for most valued documents, such as certificates and other documents of high importance. Where safety deposit boxes fail in price and easy accessibility, iSigned.com hopes to succeed because their subscribers are able to access their documents at anytime at competitive prices.

The iSigned.com site is fairly easy to navigate and signing up for an account is not a daunting task. Its packages cater for individuals and businesses. Each package is specifically designed for certain types of subscribers, giving them the option to choose what works for them.

Individual subscribers have the option between a “Saver” account for US$2.95 per month which allows 100-documents usage limit; or an “Unlimited” account for US$9.95 per month which allows unlimited usage. For businesses, the packages range from US$24.95 to US$229.95 and are more complex, allowing more than one user access to the account and proving from 10GB to 150GB usage limit. This allows businesses to choose packages that suit their business size.

iSigned.com must be doing something right as the team were selected to be a part of a recent Seedcamp gathering in London. The developers live in South Africa, their system runs in the United States and the company structures are based in the United Kingdom and South Africa — proving that their quest for global domination may well be under way.