You might ask — as our friends have — why another e-signature solution? Why enter such a crowded market? Why not just build another AI tool?
The answer: existing solutions haven’t kept up with today’s security realities.
Neither legacy giants nor the dozens of other new entrants (hello!) have meaningfully adapted to the world we live in now. What do we mean? Neither legacy giants nor the dozens of other new entrants (hello!) have meaningfully adapted to the world we live in now. What do we mean?
Breaches happen. They happen with increasing speed and sophistication, accelerated by generative AI. They happen to your trusted e-signature providers. They happen to the other software services that can access your most sensitive documents. This isn’t fear-mongering, but a fact of modern computing.
However, a breach upstream shouldn’t automatically become a breach for you. A provider breach should not automatically expose your documents. But with most tools, it does.
The privacy and integrity of the documents you entrust to SaaS providers should remain intact — even when the provider itself is compromised.
That’s the gap we saw. And that’s why we built Subnoto.
Problem: Traditional e-signature providers need to see your documents
Most e-signature platforms follow the same basic pattern:
- Your documents stay encrypted at rest.
- They stay encrypted in transit.
- But during signing, they must be decrypted so the service can process them.
This “decryption during processing” step creates risk. It means your documents are exposed in plaintext:
- during signature placement,
- inside backend workflows,
- to internal systems and staff,
- and to every third-party processor in the chain.
Even well-intentioned e-signature providers can’t eliminate the vulnerability — nor have they taken steps to do so.
This design is outdated and creates unnecessary risk.
The Subnoto way: Keep documents confidential even during signing
Subnoto is built differently.
We use confidential computing to keep documents encrypted and isolated at all times, including during signing. Processing happens inside secure enclaves that neither we nor cloud operators can access.
The result is a true zero-knowledge e-signature platform:
- No third parties can access your documents
- No governments or external actors can force access
- Not even we, the platform creators, can view your content
Your signing activity stays private. Your documents stay yours.
Your documents remain confidential even if a breach occurs — whether in your systems, ours, our hosting provider’s, or any other service in the chain.
Because access is technically impossible, your data stays private by default, and your signing workflows remain fully operational.
Note: if you delete a document from your confidential workspace, it cannot be recovered. Remember, we have no access to it.
Why Subnoto exists
Subnoto exists because sensitive documents deserve better protection than the industry has offered to date.
Sensitive documents should remain confidential, even if the service handling them is breached. Current e-signature tools do not provide that guarantee. We built a platform that does.
Our goal is simple: make secure, modern document signing available without adding complexity or requiring trust in the provider.
That is the gap we fill, and why we’re building Subnoto.
Discover what zero-knowledge e-signing feels like
Built for privacy by design, without sacrificing speed or usability.
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