At Disrupt NY 2013, Glider unveiled its SaaS for corporate teams to bring structure, clarity and reporting to the contract process much like Salesforce.com did for the sales funnel. The visual analytics tool should help shed light on the number of contracts closed, those outstanding and a host of other metrics to help executives get a better view of deal flow.
The service is meant to replace the massive “reply all” email thread and the Excel spreadsheets that have dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of rows listing the tasks necessary to complete a deal. With Glider, companies can manage sales contracts, non-disclosure agreements, partnerships and any contractual process used by the organizations. The service lets users see all of their open contracts in one place, request documents from legal teams, get quick approval from managers, sign documents and see exactly who and what is holding up any given deal.
Glider demonstrated onstage how an employee can import contracts into the Glider platform, track versions of the contract, manage approvals and collect digital signatures. The highlight came with the deal flow analytics. This showed how a larger organization can quickly see how the quarter is progressing, what deals look like, what will close and what will not. The service n users people to sign a contract and tasks that the individual and group members have completed or still need to do.
Glider supports most major file formats and is compatible with services, such as Box, Dropbox, Gmail and Google Drive. Contracts get emailed to other people on the team. Recipients can then view the document in a secure web link or download it as a Word file or PDF.
Glider uses password-based security, tracks the IP address of the user and serves a cookie to verify the signer’s identity. Documents are encrypted and the service uses SSL for communication security. The company says two-factor authentication is on the roadmap.
“We have modeled ourselves after Box,” said Co-Founder Eli Rubel. “Ninety percent Fortune 500 companies trust Box to use Box.”
The company has initially built an HTML5 app for mobile, said Co-Founder Justin Thiele. The roadmap includes plans for native iOS and Android apps.
Co-Founder Eli Rubel said Glider, which took about four months to build, targets customers who have a deeper deal flow and need a better picture to help prepare for the end-of-quarter reporting to management or investors. They are still working through the cost, but it will most likely charge a monthly fee for unlimited users and additionally based on the number of contracts the company is processing.
The company has $1 million in seed funding from True Venture Partners and is seeking a Series A.