Terms of service

1. About these terms

These terms are the agreement between you and Foundium. They cover the platform, the intelligence service, the work tools, the adviser marketplace and anything else we operate.

Foundium is at Phase I. Access is granted on request, the product is still being built, and parts of it described in our marketing are not live yet. Where something is not live, these terms cover it from the point it is.

If you use Foundium through an accelerator, university or other programme, additional terms apply under that institution's licence. Where the two conflict, the licence wins on data governance and programme participation, and these terms apply to everything else.

We update these terms as the product changes. You will be told by email and in the platform at least 30 days before a material change takes effect. Continuing to use Foundium after that date means you accept the update.

2. Who Foundium is for

Foundium serves five groups, and what you agree to depends on which one you are in.

• Founders building a venture, with an account created on sign-up.
• Freelancers running a practice, with an account created on sign-up.
• Advisers offering paid guidance, onboarded in cohorts rather than on sign-up.
• Institutions licensing the platform for a cohort under a separate agreement.
• Brand partners reaching members through the platform under a separate agreement.

You must be at least 18 to hold an account. If you join through an institutional programme, eligibility is set by that programme.

3. Your account

You are responsible for your account security and for everything done under it. Tell us immediately if you think it has been compromised.

One personal account per person. We may merge or suspend duplicates. You may not share credentials, resell access, or use one account to serve several separate practices.

Acceptable use

You agree not to do any of the following.

• Reverse-engineer, probe or attempt to extract the intelligence models.
• Scrape, crawl or systematically download platform data, including opportunity listings and member profiles.
• Use the platform to facilitate fraud, harassment or unlawful activity.
• Contact other members for anything other than the work the platform is for.
• Circumvent security controls or test them without written permission.

4. Plans and billing

What the plans are

Founders choose Free, Pro or Elite. Freelancers choose Free, Pro or Studio. Free plans carry caps on projects, clients, invoices and storage. Paid plans remove those caps. Prices exclude VAT where it applies.

Adviser, institution and brand partner pricing is set by scope in a separate agreement.

Trials and payment

Paid plans include a 14-day trial. No card is taken for a free plan. Subscription payments are taken by our payment provider on a recurring basis, and we never hold or store your card details ourselves.

Cancellation and refunds

Cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and we do not refund part-periods except where the law requires it. Cancelling within 14 days of first subscribing to a paid plan entitles you to a full refund under UK consumer law.

One-off purchases such as portfolio exports are non-refundable once generated, unless the output is materially defective.

5. Work tools, contracts and invoices

Documents you send

Contract and proposal templates are a starting point, not legal advice. Default terms such as capped revision rounds, kill fees and transfer of rights on final payment are drafted to protect you, but you are the one entering the agreement and you are responsible for what you send. Have anything significant checked by a solicitor.

Electronic signatures captured through the platform are intended to be valid under the Electronic Communications Act 2000. We cannot guarantee enforceability in a specific dispute or jurisdiction.

Invoicing and payment links

Invoices, payment links and automated chasing are tools you operate. The contract for the work is between you and your client, and Foundium is not a party to it.

Payments from your clients are processed by a regulated payment provider. Foundium does not hold client money, and we are not a bank, a payment institution or a debt collection agency. Automated chasing sends reminders you have configured. It does not pursue a debt on your behalf.

Tax set-aside

The set-aside feature holds back a percentage you choose from payments received so the money is visible as committed. It is a budgeting tool. It does not calculate your tax liability, file anything, or constitute tax advice, and your obligations to HMRC remain entirely yours.

6. The intelligence service

Intelligence output is for information and decision support. It is not legal, financial, medical or investment advice, and no output should be treated as a professional opinion.

The engine reads what you give it: check-ins, venture or practice data, documents you upload, milestones, session patterns and any integrations you connect. Accuracy depends on the quality of that input, and Foundium is not liable for decisions you take on the basis of its output.

Risk flags on contracts and documents are pattern matching against a clause library. A flag is a prompt to look closer. The absence of a flag is not confirmation that a document is safe to sign.

The models are updated continuously, so behaviour changes over time. We will not make a change that materially reduces the functionality on your plan without telling you first.

7. Matching and opportunities

Briefs, grants, calls and introductions are surfaced when the platform judges you are positioned to convert them. Matching is a recommendation, not a guarantee of eligibility, availability or outcome.

We do not guarantee a volume of matched work on any plan. Nothing on this platform is an offer of employment, and no match creates a contract until you and the other party agree one.

Third-party listings are reproduced in good faith from public and partner sources. Deadlines and criteria can change without notice, and you should check them at the source before relying on them.

8. Advisers, institutions and partners

Advisers are independent contractors, not employees or agents of Foundium. We are not a party to an advisory agreement, and we are not responsible for the quality, accuracy or outcome of a session. Rates, scope and cancellation terms are set between the two parties.

Institutions license the platform for a defined cohort. Where an institution is a controller of member data, it still only sees what the member allows in their own privacy settings. Wellbeing data is never visible to an institution without the member's explicit consent, whatever the licence says.

Brand partners pay for placement, which is always labelled. Paid placement never alters an intelligence recommendation, a risk flag or a match score, and we will not accept a partnership that would require it to.

9. Your data and your content

Your personal data and your work belong to you. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

You keep ownership of everything you upload: venture and practice data, check-in responses, documents, deliverables and portfolio content. You grant us a limited licence to process and display it for the sole purpose of running the service for you. We do not use your client work to train models.

The platform software, design, branding and intelligence output are ours. You may not copy, resell or commercialise them.

You can export your data at any time from settings. If you delete your account, personal data is deleted within 30 days, except where the law requires retention or a live dispute is unresolved.

We may use anonymised, aggregated data for research, product improvement and commercial insight reports. No individual is identifiable in it, and you may object at any time.

10. Availability and support

We aim to keep the platform available continuously, but we do not commit to a service level on any self-serve plan. Maintenance, upgrades and incidents will cause downtime.

Features described as planned or in development may change or be dropped. Nothing in our marketing is a contractual commitment to ship a specific feature on a specific date.

11. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, creates a security risk, or is used to harm another member. Where it is practical we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix it.

Serious breaches, including fraud, unlawful use and attempts to extract the models, may lead to immediate closure without notice.

You may close your account at any time from settings. Closure ends your subscription at the end of the current billing period and your data is deleted on the schedule in the privacy policy.

12. Disclaimers and liability

The platform is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be limited. Subject to that, our total liability in any twelve-month period is capped at the fees you paid us in that period.

We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profit, lost opportunity, lost data, or loss arising from a decision taken on the basis of intelligence output, a missed flag, or a matched opportunity that did not convert.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.

If you are a consumer, you keep any mandatory protections available under the law of the country where you live.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms go through the contact route on the platform.