Privacy Policy

1. Controller and scope

Founders of Equity is currently operated in Sweden by a private individual using the Founders of Equity trading identity. For the processing described in this policy, we are the data controller. Contact: foundersofequity@gmail.com.

This policy applies to visitors, account holders, people who contact us, people whose public professional data appears in the index, and users of Pattern Engine. It should be read with the Terms of Service and Legal notice.

2. Account, visitor, and contact data

Account users

We process your email address, authentication method, account identifiers, subscription tier, optional startup-profile fields, Pattern Engine threads and messages, daily usage records, and security-related events. We use this data to provide the account and research service, secure it, prevent abuse, apply access limits, and respond to support requests. The relevant legal bases are performance of a contract, steps requested before entering a contract, and our legitimate interests in security and service integrity.

Visitors

Hosting and security systems may process technical information such as IP address, browser or device information, request timestamps, and visited paths. This is used to deliver the site, protect it against abuse, diagnose faults, and keep the service available. We rely on legitimate interests for strictly necessary security and operational processing.

Contact and feedback

When you email us or submit product feedback, we process the information you send, including your contact details and relevant Pattern Engine context. We use it to answer you, investigate the issue, and improve the service. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in communication, support, and product quality.

Billing

If paid subscriptions are enabled in the future, we will process billing email, plan status, Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, transaction status, and records needed for accounting. Card details are handled by Stripe, not stored by Founders of Equity. The legal bases will be contract and applicable legal obligations. Paid checkout is currently blocked until complete legal seller details are configured.

3. Public founder-profile data

The index may contain professionally relevant information about notable founders and businesspeople, such as name, career history, companies, education, public funding events, public wealth estimates, public quotations, and source links. We obtain this data from public sources, structured public data, company materials, and editorial research rather than directly from the person in most cases.

We use this information to maintain a research index about founder paths. Where GDPR applies, our basis is legitimate interests in research, information, editorial curation, and operating the index, balanced against the rights of the person concerned. We do not intend to include special-category personal data. If a profile is inaccurate, outdated, misleading, or should be assessed, use the correction and objection route described in the Legal notice.

4. Pattern Engine and AI

Pattern Engine may send your prompt, a limited conversation context, optional startup-profile context, selected filters, and a structured briefing built from the FOE index to AI and research providers. Current or configurable providers can include Google Gemini, Groq, Anthropic, and Tavily. We use them to generate or validate research-style answers and, where configured, obtain public web context.

We do not use prompts to train our own foundation model. Providers may process API inputs under their own contractual and security policies, including abuse prevention or service operation. Do not submit passwords, API keys, confidential information, or unrelated personal data about another person. Pattern Engine does not make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you.

Anonymous Pattern Engine use is limited by technical abuse controls. Anonymous users can receive a limited preview flow, but the answer itself is withheld until account creation and anonymous answer threads are not stored by FOE as an account conversation.

5. Retention and deletion

Account information and saved Pattern Engine threads are retained while the account is active. We delete or anonymize data after a verified deletion request where no legal, security, or dispute retention need applies. Please request account deletion from the email address associated with your account by writing to foundersofequity@gmail.com.

Active daily usage records are retained to enforce plan limits. We do not promise a particular anonymization or expiry period unless the implementation provides one. Support correspondence and security records are retained only as long as reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose. Financial and transaction records, when payments are enabled, may be retained for the period required by law.

6. Processors and international transfers

We use service providers to host, secure, authenticate, process payments, send transactional email, run AI inference, and obtain optional research context. A provider may process data outside the EU or EEA. Where a restricted transfer applies, we rely on an appropriate transfer mechanism and safeguards required by applicable law, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses where appropriate.

• Vercel: hosting, delivery, and optional analytics.
• Supabase: authentication and application database services.
• Stripe: payment checkout, subscription management, and billing portal when paid plans are enabled.
• Resend: transactional email when configured.
• Google Gemini: Pattern Engine model inference when configured.
• Groq: Pattern Engine model inference and provider fallback when configured.
• Anthropic: model inference only if explicitly enabled.
• Tavily: optional public web research for Pattern Engine when configured.

7. Your rights

Depending on applicable law, you may have rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, object to, or receive a portable copy of your personal data. You may withdraw consent at any time where processing depends on consent. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request and normally aim to respond within the period required by applicable law.

Send requests to foundersofequity@gmail.com. You may also complain to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, IMY, or to another competent supervisory authority.

8. Cookies, browser storage, and analytics

Strictly necessary authentication and security mechanisms help keep the service signed in and protected. We also store your analytics choice in browser local storage so the banner remembers it. This preference storage is used to respect your choice and is not an advertising technology.

Optional Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights load only after you choose "Accept analytics". Choosing "Essential only" keeps them off. We do not use third-party advertising cookies. You can change or withdraw your analytics choice at any time through the "Cookie settings" control in the site footer.

9. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the service, including access controls, TLS in transit, server-side secrets, rate limits on sensitive endpoints, signed Stripe webhook verification when payments are enabled, and user-scoped access to stored Pattern Engine conversations. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Report a suspected vulnerability to foundersofequity@gmail.com.

10. Children and external links

The service is not directed at children under 16. Do not create an account if you are under 16. The service may also link to third-party websites. Those sites have their own content and privacy practices.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service, its providers, or applicable law changes. The last-updated date below will be revised. Where a change is material, we may provide an additional notice in the service or by email when appropriate.