Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Prudence AI, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and protects information when you use Founder Memo, including its websites, applications, memos, audio briefings, and related services (collectively, the “Service”).

When an organization provides information through the Service, that organization may control the information and we may process it on the organization’s behalf. In that situation, you can direct privacy questions to the organization or to us, at the address in Section 16. This Policy does not govern third-party sites or services that you access separately.

In this Policy, “Customer Content” means the information, files, prompts, and other materials that you or your organization submit to the Service, together with the memos, audio briefings, and other outputs we prepare from them.

• We do not sell personal information or Customer Content.
• We do not share information for cross-context behavioral advertising and do not permit service providers to use Customer Content for their own advertising. We do not run advertising or third-party analytics trackers on the Service.
• We do not use Customer Content to train or fine-tune an AI model of our own, and we seek contractual and technical restrictions against AI providers using it to train their general-purpose models, as explained in Section 5.
• Your memos are private to your organization unless you choose to share them (see Section 7).
• We disclose information only as needed to provide, secure, support, and administer the Service; follow your instructions; complete a business transaction; or comply with law and protect rights.
• The Service necessarily uses AI and other service providers, as described below. Those operational disclosures are not sales, but they do mean information leaves our systems for processing.

Depending on how you use the Service, we collect:

• Account and organization information, such as name, email address, organization, membership, role, invitations, language and time zone preferences, and account preferences;
• Drafts started before you have an account. You can begin a memo without signing in. We save the draft against an anonymous session identifier kept in your browser, and we connect it to your account if you confirm your email. If that email already has an account, the draft stays with the browser and does not move to the account;
• Customer Content, such as company and project descriptions, the question or decision you want examined, prompts, documents, presentations, spreadsheets, images, financial and customer information, and information about the people and companies named in your materials;
• Memo and research information, including memos, audio briefings, revisions and their history, citations, public-source material, and processing status;
• Sharing information, such as the share links you create, their settings and expiry dates, and records of each time a link is opened (see Section 7);
• Transaction information, such as your subscription, price, payment status, invoices, receipts, refunds, and limited billing details. Our payment processor handles payment-card numbers; we do not need the complete card number or security code;
• Device, usage, and security information, such as IP address, browser and device type, pages or features used, timestamps, authentication events, error logs, and security signals; and
• Communications, including support requests, feedback and any screenshots you attach, and other messages you send us.

To prepare a memo we also gather information from public sources, such as a company’s website, filings, news, and public profiles, about your company, its team, its competitors, and its market. That information can include personal information about people who are not Founder Memo customers, such as founders, executives, and investors. We do not buy personal information from data brokers.

Customer Content may contain personal, confidential, or sensitive information about people other than the account holder. The submitting user or organization is responsible for having authority to provide that information and for giving any notices or obtaining any permissions required by law.

We use information to:

• provide, personalize, maintain, and improve the Service;
• process your materials, research public sources, extract content, prepare and deliver memos and audio briefings, and support revisions;
• create and administer accounts, organizations, memberships, invitations, subscriptions, transactions, and customer support;
• authenticate users, prevent fraud and abuse, troubleshoot problems, monitor reliability, and protect the Service and its users;
• communicate about accounts, transactions, memos, renewals, security, support, policies, and Service updates;
• comply with law, enforce our Terms of Service, resolve disputes, and protect rights, safety, and property; and
• create aggregate or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify an individual, and use that information for lawful business purposes.

We do not use Customer Content to train or fine-tune an AI model of our own. We also seek contractual and technical restrictions against AI providers using Customer Content to train their general-purpose models, as explained below.

AI processing is essential to the Service. Relevant Customer Content, instructions, and limited technical metadata may be sent to one or more AI model, search, document-processing, text-recognition, or speech-generation providers to perform requested functions. Different features may use different providers, and a memo may involve several providers.

Where commercially and technically available, we use enterprise, zero-data-retention, no-training, or comparably restricted provider configurations and agreements. These protections are not an absolute guarantee. A provider or feature may not support zero retention; a provider may keep transient copies, safety or abuse logs, operational metadata, legally required records, or backups; and provider controls, contracts, or practices may change. We therefore cannot promise that every provider will retain no information or that deletion from every provider system will be immediate or complete.

We select and configure providers with the goal of limiting their use and retention of Customer Content, disclose only what is reasonably needed for the requested function, and do not authorize them to use Customer Content for advertising or unrelated independent purposes.

Access to Customer Content and account information is limited to authorized personnel and contractors who have been given permission for the task. They may open a memo, the materials behind it, and its audio to give you the support you ask for, investigate errors and failed runs, check quality and safety, detect abuse, secure the Service, and comply with law. Those with access are subject to confidentiality obligations.

Your materials and memos are also processed by software and by the service providers described in Section 5 and Section 8. Members of your own organization can see them according to their roles.

Memos are private to your organization unless a member shares them. Members of an organization can create a share link for one of its memos and can revoke any link. Anyone who has a link can open the shared memo without an account, play its audio briefing, read the audio transcript, and download the memo files. The shared page shows the project name and the date of the latest update. Treat a link like the memo itself: whoever you give it to can pass it on. A revoked or expired link stops opening.

To count readers, the first time someone requests a page or file under a share link, including a link that has been revoked or has expired, we set a first-party cookie called share_viewer_id that holds a random identifier. It lasts one year, is used only to count readers and avoid counting the same reader repeatedly, and is not used for advertising. It is not set for visitors who never request a share link. If a browser blocks the cookie, we count readers by a one-way hash of the IP address and browser details. For each page or file opened we also record the time, the IP address, the browser details, the referring page with any share-link token removed, and the reader’s Founder Memo account if they are signed in. Link owners see counts and the time of the latest view, not who the viewers are. Authorized staff can read the individual records, and each such read is logged.

We may disclose information to:

• Service providers and subprocessors that provide AI, search, document processing, text recognition, speech generation, hosting, databases, storage, security, authentication, background task processing, payments, email, customer support, and similar operational services. They may process information only for contracted services or as law permits;
• Your organization and authorized users. Memos, project details, files, activity, membership details, and other organization content may be available to members according to their roles;
• People you share with. Anyone you give a share link to can open what you shared (see Section 7);
• Professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants, auditors, and insurers who are subject to confidentiality obligations;
• Authorities or other parties when we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect rights, safety, property, users, the public, or the integrity of the Service; and
• Transaction participants in connection with a financing, diligence process, reorganization, merger, acquisition, sale, insolvency, or transfer of some or all of our business, subject to appropriate confidentiality protections where practicable.

We may disclose information at your direction or with your consent. We may also disclose aggregate or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify an individual. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.

We and our service providers use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies that the Service needs in order to work, plus one that counts readers of shared memos:

• Sign-in and security. Cookies that keep you signed in, including the anonymous session that holds a draft before you have an account, and that protect your session;
• Preferences and downloads. A cookie that remembers the language you choose for your workspace, and a short-lived cookie that signals when a file download has finished;
• Remembered email and form state. Your browser’s local storage remembers the email address you used to request a sign-in link, so the form can fill it in next time, and its session storage holds the state of a draft or a checkout while you work;
• Shared memos. The viewer cookie described in Section 7; and
• Checkout. Our payment processor provides the checkout form. It may set its own cookies and load its own resources, such as scripts that process your payment and prevent fraud and, at our request, web fonts from a font-hosting service.

We do not use cookies or similar technologies for advertising, and we do not use third-party analytics trackers. We do not track you across other websites or online services, and we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. Because of this, the Service does not respond differently to “Do Not Track” or Global Privacy Control signals.

Browser settings may block some technologies, but doing so can prevent sign-in, checkout, preferences, or other features from working.

We keep information for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes in this Policy. How long depends on the type of information, why we collected it, how sensitive it is, and what law and our obligations require. In general:

• Account and organization information is kept while your account exists, and afterward as needed to honor organization instructions, resolve disputes, and meet legal obligations;
• Customer Content, including memos, audio briefings, and revision history, is kept while your memos and materials remain in your account, so that you can read them and ask for revisions. We delete or de-identify it when you ask us to, as described below, or when we no longer need it to provide the Service;
• Drafts started without an account are kept so that you can return to them from the same browser, and we may delete drafts that appear abandoned;
• Share links and the records of who opened them, including IP addresses and browser details, are kept with the memo they belong to; a revoked or expired link stops opening immediately;
• Transaction records are kept for as long as tax, accounting, and fraud-prevention rules require;
• Device, usage, and security records, including sign-in and administrative events, are kept for as long as the account or memo they relate to exists, and afterward only as long as we need them to secure the Service, investigate abuse, resolve disputes, or meet legal obligations; and
• Communications are kept as long as needed to respond to you and to document your request.

When a subscription ends, we generally keep your memos and materials in your account so that you can read them and resubscribe, unless you ask us to delete them or we no longer need them to provide the Service. To ask us to delete your account, a memo, or your materials, follow the steps in Section 13. Your account does not have a delete button, so we process these requests by hand, and we keep only what we are required or permitted to keep for legal, tax, security, or dispute purposes.

Deleted content may remain temporarily in backups, security records, provider systems, or legally required records. Public-source information may remain publicly available even after removal from Founder Memo. We may retain de-identified information that cannot reasonably be linked back to an individual. AI-provider retention is also subject to the limitations described in Section 5.

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information in light of its nature and the risks involved, including access controls that limit who can see an organization’s content. We also seek appropriate safeguards from service providers. However, no system, transmission, provider, or storage method is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security, confidentiality, integrity, or availability. You are responsible for protecting your email account, devices, sign-in links, and organization permissions.

We operate from the United States, and our systems are hosted primarily there. We and our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries whose privacy laws may differ from those where you live. Where required, we use recognized legal mechanisms intended to protect personal information transferred across borders.

Depending on where you live and subject to legal exceptions, you may have rights to request access to, correction of, deletion of, or a copy of personal information; object to or restrict certain processing; withdraw consent where processing relies on consent; and appeal a denied request. You may also have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising a privacy right.

To make a request, email hello@foundermemo.com with “Privacy Request” in the subject. You may also use the controls in your account, such as your profile and organization settings. We may verify your identity and authority before acting, and we respond within the time the law requires. If we process information only for an organization, we may direct the request to that organization. Authorized agents may submit requests where law permits, subject to verification.

If you only started a draft without an account, we cannot find it by your email address because we do not have one. Tell us the company name in the draft and roughly when you wrote it, and we will try to locate it.

If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our response or by emailing the same address with “Appeal” in the subject. If we deny your appeal, you may contact your state attorney general.

California notice. The categories we collect are described in Section 3, the purposes in Section 4, the categories of recipients in Section 8, and how long we keep information in Section 10. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising and have not done so during the preceding 12 months. Because we do not engage in those practices, there is no sale or advertising share to opt out of. We use sensitive personal information only to provide and protect the Service or as otherwise permitted by law. This statement does not concede that we are subject to any particular privacy law.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we process personal information to perform our contract with you, which includes providing the Service and billing for it; for our legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving the Service and preventing fraud; to comply with legal obligations; and, where we ask, with your consent. You may also have the right to object to or restrict processing, to receive your information in a portable format, and to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

If you are not a customer but believe that a memo or a customer’s materials contain personal information about you, you can contact us at the address above. We will consider your request in light of the customer’s rights and the law.

The Service is not directed to children under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children. Do not submit information about a child unless you have lawful authority and the Service is appropriate for that use. Contact us if you believe a child has provided information directly to us.

We review this Policy at least once a year and may update it to reflect changes in law, providers, features, or practices. We will post the revised Policy and update the effective date, and provide additional notice or obtain consent where required. We will not apply a materially more permissive use of previously collected personal information retroactively without notice or consent when the law requires it.

Questions, concerns, or privacy requests may be sent to Prudence AI, LLC at hello@foundermemo.com.