ForFounder Privacy Policy 

Update Effective: January 5, 2026  

This Privacy Policy describes how ForFounder Community LLC and ForFounder LLC ("ForFounder", "we", "us" or "our”) collects information through our interactions with you, which includes through our website, software, platform, and services on which this Privacy Policy is posted (including https://www.forfounder.com/) (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Policy also describes how we may use and disclose this information and the rights you may have with respect to your information. 

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand how we handle your information. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Services.  

Table of Contents 

Click on one of the links below to jump to the listed section: 

  1. Information we collect 

  1. How we use the information we collect 

  1. Online analytics and advertising 

  1. How we disclose your information 

  1. How we store and protect information and information retention 

  1. Links to external content 

  1. Children 

  1. Your Choices 

  1. Changes to this Policy 

  1. Contact Us 

1. Information we collect 

We collect different categories of information from and about the different types of users of the Services, including our community of founders and other members of our Services, as well as unregistered visitors to certain limited parts of our website. We may collect information about users and visitors from different sources, as described in more detail in this section. 

Information We Collect Directly from You 

We collect information you provide to us directly when you use our Services. This information may be different depending on the interaction, such as: 

Registration Information: This includes information you voluntarily submit when you register for our Services, such as name, photo, contact details (including social media profiles), organization, industry, skills and areas of expertise, application materials you submit for membership verification purposes, and any other information you voluntarily include in your membership bio. Please note, as part of your application process, we may request information to verify your affiliation with your organization, which may include among other things, U.S. business registration, news articles or press releases, and other publicly available filings that identify your status as a founder. You acknowledge that we may use such information that you voluntarily provide to verify your status as a founder and represent that you have appropriate authorizations to provide us with such information. 

Payment information: When you register for the Services, we will receive information about the transaction and your purchase history (including the type of membership you register for) – however, we do not collect your payment information directly. Our third-party payment processor will process any payment card or bank information that you provide.  

Identity Verification Information: In certain cases, we may require additional verification of certain members on our Services. In these cases, we partner with a third party identity verification partner that processes the information on our behalf. 

Inquiries and feedback. We collect any information that you provide when you contact us via the Services or through other means (like email).   

Information you submit to our Wisdom Library. Registered users may submit queries and provide information when you use our Wisdom Library (including when you type or talk through the functionality), such as information related to your company and relationship with investors, advisors, professionals, deal terms, and the contents of your question or response. While we collect this information, we do not intend to associate it with you or your company personally. We take commercially reasonable steps to remove identifiable information from your interactions with the Wisdom Library before providing that information to other users.  

References. As part of the Services, our users may voluntarily share their experiences with certain professionals and companies (collectively, “References”). These references are stored and accessible via the Wisdom Library. However, as described above, we make commercially reasonable efforts to not provide identifiable References until a member of the Services requests to connect with the user that provided the Reference. In such cases, the user that provided the Reference will receive a request to connect the user to other users seeking additional information about the Reference (and will be able to decline such requests). If the user accepts the request, both users will be identified and connected to one another.   

Expert Exchange. As part of the Services, we may also facilitate connections between members to find opportunity matches for consulting, board seats, mentorship, advisory services, and other services. If you agree to serve as an expert for other members through your profile settings, this will be viewable by other members on the Services. Note, any member of the Services can interact with other members via the Connect function. 

Information We Collect Automatically 

When you use or access our Services, we may also automatically collect information about you from your device. This includes: 

  • Geographic Location: We collect general geographical location information if the Services you are using are location-enabled and your device transmits location data and/or your IP address. This enables us to provide location-specific information to you. 

  • Usage Data: We may log certain information when you access and use our Services. This may include your IP address, user-agent string, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information (e.g., device IDs), pages visited, links clicked, the requested URL, hardware settings, and search terms.  

  • Information collected from cookies and similar technologies: We, our service providers, and third-party advertising and analytics partners also collect information about users of the Services automatically using cookies and other tracking technologies. For example, these third parties may use cookies, pixel tags (also called web beacons or clear gifs), and/or other technologies to collect such usage information for advertising and analytics purposes. Pixel tags enable us and our third-party partners to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits the site on which the pixel tag is located in order to learn which advertisement or website brings a user to a given site. Please note that our third-party partners’ use of information collected via cookies and similar technologies is governed by those partners’ privacy policies. 

Information We Collect From Third Parties 

We collect the following information about you from third parties: 

  • Publicly available sources: We may collect information from publicly-available sources, such as social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and publicly available company websites. Additionally, if you interact with us on third-party platforms, such as via email or social email, we may collect information we receive from such third-party platforms as well.  We use this information to supplement the information we collect directly from you for purposes of providing our Services.   

  • Referrals, References, and Other Users: We may receive information about potential users that may be interested in the Services or references for investors, professional services, and equity advisors from other users. If you submit someone else’s information to us, you represent that you are authorized to provide this information to us. 

  • Business Partners: We may receive information about potential and current users of the Services through our business partners. 

We use this information to supplement the information that we collect directly from you in order to derive your possible interests and to provide more relevant experiences for you with our organization and improve our Services, analytics, and advertising. 

2. How we use the information we collect 

We generally use the information we collect about you to operate, manage and maintain the Services, which may include: 

  • to administer, manage, and improve our Services, such as to evaluate prospective users’ eligibility for membership, create and administer accounts, and enable you to interact with other users; 

  • to provide the product, service, feature or information you have requested and to fulfill your transactions, including to process payments related to your membership; 

  • to send you administrative messages, updates, legal notices, technical notices or security alerts; 

  • to customize your user experience and to personalize the services of ForFounder and our ad partners and provide you with content of interest, including by tailoring the advertisements that are displayed to you to make them more useful and relevant to you; 

  • to conduct research and development, and allow us and our analytics partners to analyze and understand trends and user behavior and to improve our Services; 

  • to respond to your inquiries, and provide technical support and assistance; 

  • to enable Sponsor-level members to sponsor ForFounder events or content;  

  • to protect the safety of ForFounder and our users, including to ensure compliance with our Terms of Service and other policies, block suspected spammers, address abuse, and detect and prevent fraud; 

  • to provide you with newsletters, events, resources, and other information we think may be of interest to you; 

  • to facilitate your participation in a survey or poll; 

  • to facilitate background checks on prospective users that may be interested in joining the Services; 

  • to meet contractual obligations; 

  • to protect the security of our systems, and otherwise to debug or troubleshoot the Services; 

  • to exercise our rights, defend legal claims and comply with law, legal process and internal policies; and 

  • for other purposes with your consent or as permitted or required by law. 

We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected through the Services, including information that you submit to the Wisdom Library. To the extent permitted by applicable laws, we may use de-identified and/or aggregated data for any purpose, and may also disclose such data to any third parties. 

Additionally, for the purposes above, we may also combine the information that we collect through the Services with information that we receive from other sources, and use such combined information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. 

3. Online analytics and advertising  

As you use our Services, we, our service providers, and ad and analytics partners collect a variety of information through the use of “cookies” and similar technologies, such as tracking pixels, to understand how you navigate through and interact with our Services, to learn what content is popular, to enhance the Services and provide you with a more relevant and personalized experience, for authentication and advertising purposes, to save your preferences, and to collect certain usage, device and location information as described above.  

Online analytics 

We may use third-party web analytics services on our Services, such as those of Squarespace and Google Analytics. These service providers use the sort of technology described in the “Information We Collect Automatically” section above to help us analyze how users use the Services. The information collected by the technology will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers, who use the information to evaluate your use of the Services on our behalf. If you’d like to opt out of Google Analytics, please use the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on located here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. 

Tailored Online Advertising 

We work with online advertising partners such as Google, to deliver ForFounder advertisements that are more tailored to you both on our Services and on third-party Services. 

To engage in these activities, our partners may place cookies, pixel tags and similar technologies on many online services, including ours. They use these technologies to collect information about your activities on across different online services to deliver you more relevant advertising. For example, they may use the information they collect from their cookies on our Services to identify ForFounder services you might be interested in and to recognize your device so they can show you relevant ForFounder advertisements while you are using another online service.  

We do not have access to, and this Privacy Policy does not govern, the use of cookies or other tracking technologies that may be placed on devices you use to access our Services by non-affiliated third parties. If you are interested in more information about tailored browser advertising and how you can generally control cookies from being put on your devices to deliver tailored advertising, you may visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s Consumer Opt-Out link or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Opt-Out link to opt out of receiving tailored advertising from companies that participate in those programs.  

Please note that these opt-outs apply per browser and per device, so you will have to opt out for each device—and each browser on each device—through which you access our Services. 

4. How we disclose your information 

We may disclose information we collect about you in the following circumstances: 

  • To other users, in order to enable you to interact through the Services’ Connect function facilitate users’ provision of references, or for us to otherwise provide the Services (please note: our Share and Seek functions are facilitated through an AI-enabled chatbot and are intended to allow users to submit queries anonymously); 

  • To our advertising and analytics partners, for which we disclose certain device and browsing habits to present you with more relevant advertising about our Services as you browse the Internet; 

  • To our vendors who provide services to us (including to host the Services and analyze data collected from our Services) 

  • As necessary to provide you with information or materials you request; 

  • To respond to a subpoena or court order, judicial process or regulatory inquiry, or as otherwise required by law for a civil or criminal matter;  

  • To protect or defend against fraud, lawsuits, claims or other liabilities;  

  • To protect the security of our systems, or to protect our rights or property; 

  • In connection with a proposed or actual merger, acquisition or transfer of all or a portion of the ForFounder organization; and 

  • With your consent, such as when you provide a testimonial about your experience with the Services for us to display. 

  • In the event we receive a subpoena, court order, judicial process, regulatory inquiry or requirement of law for a civil matter, we will provide any party subject to the issue with notice in accordance with applicable law. Absent receipt of a timely notice to quash, we may disclose your information in response to the civil action.   

5. How we store and protect information and information retention 

Security: We take a variety of technical, physical, and organizational measures to protect information in our control.  However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure. As such, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and all disclosures of information to us are at your own risk. 

Information Retention: We keep your information for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and/or as required to comply with applicable laws. 

6. Links to external content 

Our Services may link or direct you to other websites, services or external content provided by third parties. We do not exercise any control over these third-party websites or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of such third-party websites or services. We recommend that you read the privacy policy for any third-party website that you visit or service that you use. 

7. Your Choices 

a. Access, Deletion, and Correction 

You may request access to, or correction or deletion of, information that we maintain about you by contacting us at the email address below. We will consider all requests we receive and reply in accordance with any applicable laws. We reserve the right not to agree to any such request if we deem it burdensome or otherwise injurious or inappropriate, or if such data will interfere with our ability to meet our own legal obligations, except to the extent required by applicable law. 

b. Opting Out of Marketing Communications 

In accordance with applicable law, we may send you marketing communications regarding our Services or the services of third parties that we believe will be interesting to you. You can ask us to stop sending such communications at any time through the opt-out instructions provided in the communication or by contacting us using the information in the “Contact Us” section below.  

Please note that, regardless of your request, we may still use and disclose certain information as permitted by this Privacy Policy or as required by applicable law. For example, you may not opt out of certain administrative or transactional emails from us, such as those confirming your requests or providing you with updates regarding our Privacy Policy or other terms. 

c. Tracking Technology Choices 

Most browsers accept cookies by default. You can change your settings to notify you when a cookie is being set or updated, or to block cookies altogether. Please consult the “Help” section of your browser for more information (e.g., Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari).  Please note that by blocking any or all cookies, you may not have access to certain features or offerings of the Services. 

Your browser settings may also allow you to automatically transmit a "Do Not Track" signal to online services you visit. Because there is no industry consensus as to what website operators should do with regard to these signals, we do not take action with respect to "Do Not Track" signals or other mechanisms, except as otherwise provided herein. For more information on "Do Not Track," visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com. 

9. Changes to this Policy 

This Policy is effective as of the “Last Updated” date posted at the top of this page. We may change this Policy from time to time and will post any changes on this page as soon as they go into effect, and/or provide additional notice as required by applicable law. By accessing the Site after we make any such changes, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please refer back to this Privacy Policy on a regular basis. 

10. Contact Us 

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@forfounder.com.