Dropbox DocSend helps business professionals to securely share and control content. Dropbox DocSend's link-based system is used to set security preferences for each stakeholder, receive notifications each time someone views a file, analyze content performance on a page-by-page basis, and create modern virtual deal rooms. With DocSend, business can offload administrative burdens and securely share the most impactful proprietary information faster. DocSend’s Virtual…
$10
per month per user
Firmex Virtual Data Room
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
Firmex in Toronto offers a Virtual Data Room touting bank level security and customizable DRM, as well as two-factor password access and authentication and compliance with strict international privacy laws (e.g. HIPAA, SOC 2, UK Data Protection Act, etc). Beyond this the VDR offers tracking and versioning, dynamic watermarking, and other security and collaboration features.
It's super great for sharing sales collateral, investor pitch slide decks, and other one-time viewing content. It's mainly built for sales but has been a huge benefit as a small startup. It best for PDF content that is okay to be horizontally oriented and scrolled (e.g. the forward and back buttons are on the side of the viewing interface).
Great for transactions involving file sharing where large amounts of documents need to be shared between multiple parties at different organizations. I could also see its utility as a document management site for an entity going through a reorganization or transition. It is not appropriate as a permanent document management system.
This is a bit of a stretch, because as far as I know, no data room provides this, but I think it would be interesting if they added a feature to manage supplemental due diligence requests. In almost every transaction I've been involved with, the buyer has supplemental due diligence requests, either because the seller did not want to provide a document or because they did not think it was sufficiently material (or they just forgot!). These supplemental requests get handled separately, using a Word or Excel document, but I think it would be nice if it could be handled directly in the data room. The reason this would be handy is that you could include dynamics links in the questions (Page 2 is missing from Document 1.1.2 - and then there is a link right to Document 1.1.2) and in the answers (See Document 3.3.4 for the missing financial statements - and then there is a link right to the missing document).
This is partly on the users, but I do not like it when a data room allows you to delete a document without there being an ongoing reference to the deleted document. It makes it hard for the other side (the purchaser) to keep straight the numbering of the due diligence documents. At a minimum, the software should just keep the numbering of the documents the same with an "Intentionally Deleted" next to the deleted document.
Our organization previously used ClearSlide but switched to DocSend as a cost savings. It was not made clear during the sales process that DocSend does not natively possess audio conferencing or screen-share capabilities. We had to add on the join.me integration after the fact, which has not worked well. When our contract is up with DocSend we will be moving back to ClearSlide
I think Firmex stacks up well with Merrill DatasiteOne, and I do not really have a preference between the two. Likewise, there are other data room services out there, and the good ones generally work pretty much the same, and I do not really have a favorite (this coming from someone who has a favorite on most things). Firmex does work much better for complex transactions than Dropbox Business, OneDrive and other cloud base file-sharing services because those services are designed for (1) more general uses, and (2) collaborating across organizations. Firmex is better for due diligence on corporate transactions because of things like the ability to print a complete data room index of 1000s of documents (this makes it easier to tell individuals in the organization who has to review what documents) and strong protections on what people who download documents can do with them (ie: watermarks, locked PDFs so they cannot manipulate the documents). Firmex is optimized for due diligence review, rather than collaboration.
