Openseed Website’s Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Openseed Ventures Ltd, a company incorporated in the United Kingdom, is the data controller responsible for your personal data. If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, contact us at privacy@openseedvc.com.

2. Information We Collect

We apply the principle of data minimisation and collect only what is necessary for the purposes described in this policy:
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1. Identity and contact details:
Your full name, email address, and professional profile URLs (e.g., LinkedIn)
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2. Founder and team information:
The personal and professional backgrounds and track records of founders and team members. We also collect voluntarily provided, anonymised information on team gender composition and ethnic minority status, used solely in aggregate to monitor the representation of founders in our deal flow.
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3. Startup and business information:
Company name, jurisdiction of incorporation, stage, sector, market description, product or service details, traction metrics, financial information, and projected milestones.
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4. Communications and survey responses:
Your responses to forms, surveys, focus groups, and questionnaires, and any communications you voluntarily send us.
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5. Meeting recordings and transcripts: records and AI-generated transcripts of calls and meetings with us, as described in Section 3.

6. Website visitors. When you browse our website, we and our website platform may use a small number of cookies and similar technologies, including essential cookies needed for the site to function and analytics that help us understand how the site is used. Our application form is hosted by Typeform, which may set its own cookies when you interact with it. We do not use cookies for advertising. You can control cookies through your browser settings.

3. Use of Artificial Intelligence

We use artificial intelligence tools as a standard part of how Openseed operates. We have taken care to document those uses transparently below.

3.1 Meeting transcription: Calls and meetings with Openseed: including pitch calls, follow-up conversations, diligence discussions, and portfolio conversations are, as a matter of standard practice, recorded and/or transcribed using AI transcription tools.

‍This is the norm for our meetings and applies whether or not a note-taking or transcription assistant is visibly present on the call.

By scheduling or joining a call with us, you should expect that an accurate transcript of the conversation will be produced and retained. Transcripts allow us to maintain accurate records of our conversations, evaluate opportunities fairly against what was said, reduce note-taking errors, and follow up effectively. We process transcripts based on our legitimate interests in operating a rigorous, well-documented investment process (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR / UK GDPR).

‍If you do not wish a call to be recorded or transcribed, you may tell us before or at the start of the call, or email privacy@openseedvc.com in advance, and we will accommodate your request. You may also ask at any time for an existing recording or transcript of a call you participated in to be deleted, subject to the retention requirements in Section 10.

Objecting to transcription will not, by itself, affect the assessment of your application. However, please note that without a full transcript our record of the conversation is limited to manual notes, which may reduce the depth and accuracy of the insights we are able to draw from the call when evaluating an opportunity.

3.2 AI-assisted screening and analysis: We use AI tools to support the screening and evaluation of funding applications and related materials.
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This includes:
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1. Optical character recognition (OCR): extracting text from pitch decks, documents, images, and other materials you submit, so they can be read, indexed, and reviewed.
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2. Analysis and summarisation: using AI tools to structure, summarise, and analyse application materials, meeting transcripts, and publicly available information, and to help assess applications against our published investment criteria.

3.3 Human decision-making: All investment decisions at Openseed are made by humans. AI tools assist with transcription, extraction, organisation, and analysis, but their outputs are inputs to human judgement: they are reviewed by our team and do not determine outcomes on their own. We do not make any decision based solely on automated processing which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you (within the meaning of Article 22 GDPR / UK GDPR). If you have concerns about the role of AI tools in the handling of your application, you may raise them at privacy@openseedvc.com.

3.4 AI service providers and safeguards:
The AI tools we use are provided by third-party providers acting as our processors under data processing agreements. We require them to process your data only on our instructions and to keep it confidential and secure. Voluntarily provided diversity information (Section 2) is held in anonymised form, is used only in aggregate for deal-flow monitoring and is not used in the AI-assisted screening of individual applications.
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4. Information You Give Us

You choose to give us certain information when using the Openseed Website. This includes:

• Funding application information: basic startup and founder details provided for evaluation and contact purposes. We process this information to take steps at your request prior to entering a potential investment relationship, as described in Section 6: not based on implied consent.

• Team information: where you provide information about your team members, you confirm that you have the rights to provide us with such information, and that you have made them aware of this policy, including our use of AI transcription and screening described in Section 3.

• Contact information: we use the contact details you provide to reach you via email, phone, or the social media channels you have shared with us, in connection with your application or our ongoing discussions.

• Survey and focus group participation: insights, responses, and testimonials you choose to share.

• Startup information sharing: We may share your startup information with potential co-investors, members of our operator network, subject matter experts, and entities affiliated with Openseed, as part of evaluating whether to progress discussions. We expect these recipients to treat your materials as confidential.

5. Information we receive from others

In addition to the information you provide directly, we may receive information about you from other sources:

Referrals and affiliated submissions. We may receive information about you where you are named in an application submitted by a startup you are affiliated with, or where a founder, co-investor, or member of our network refers you or your company to us. Where this happens, we process that information under this policy in the same way as information you provide yourself.

Public and professional sources. Where you provide links to your LinkedIn, X (Twitter), or other professional profiles, this does not grant us any special access to your accounts; it simply allows us to review information about you and your startup that is publicly available on those platforms. We may also review other publicly available sources, such as your company website or press coverage, as part of evaluating an application.

Third-party websites. Our website may contain links to third-party websites and services, including our application form hosted by Typeform. We do not control these third parties and are not responsible for their privacy practices. We encourage you to read the privacy notice of any website you visit before submitting personal data to it.

6. How We Use That Information

We use your information to:
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Evaluate opportunities: assess whether to progress discussions and analyse fitness for potential investment, including through the AI-assisted processes described in Section 3 and by sharing relevant information with the recipients described in Section 7.

‍Comply with law: meet local legal and regulatory requirements, enforce our Terms of Service, and assist law enforcement where required.

To process your information as described above, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Steps taken at your request prior to entering a contract / performance of a contract: Most of the time, we process your information to evaluate whether to progress investment discussions with you.

• Legitimate interests: Analysing founder experience, track record, startup market, product, and traction; recording and transcribing meetings; operating AI-assisted screening as described in Section 3; and administrative and legal purposes. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have assessed that our interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.

• Consent: For specific uses such as the collection of voluntarily provided diversity information (which we treat as special category data under Article 9 GDPR, processed based on your explicit consent). You may withdraw consent at any time by emailing privacy@openseedvc.com.

7. How We Share Information

Since our goal is to evaluate your startup information to decide whether or not to progress discussions for a potential investment by an affiliated entity, we also share your information with service providers and partners who assist us in operating the services, with your affiliated organization and in some cases, legal authorities. Read on for more details about how your information is shared with others.

• With other affiliated entities

  Where you voluntarily disclose startup details, with entities affiliated to Openseed.

• With our service providers and partners

  Third parties who assist us with data hosting and maintenance, funds administration, subject matter experts, analytics, and the AI transcription and screening tools described in Section 3, in each case under appropriate data processing agreements.

• For corporate transactions

  In connection with a merger, sale, acquisition, divestiture, or restructuring.

• When required by law

  We may disclose your information if reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with a legal process, such as a court order, subpoena or search warrant, government / law enforcement investigation or other legal requirements; (ii) to assist in the prevention or detection of crime (subject in each case to applicable law); or (iii) to protect the safety of any person.

• To enforce legal rights

  where reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process such as a court order or subpoena, to assist in the prevention or detection of crime, or to protect our legal rights and the legal rights of our users.

• With your consent or at your request

  other parties, where you have asked us to share your information or given us your consent to do so.

8. Your Rights

Under GDPR / UK GDPR, you have the right to:

1. Access: request a copy of the personal information we keep about you.
2. Rectification: update or correct your information, including by sending in a new entry.
3. Erasure: request deletion of your personal data at privacy@openseedvc.com.
4. Restriction: request that we limit how we process your data in certain circumstances.
5. Objection: object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including the recording and AI transcription of calls (see Section 3.1).
6. Portability: receive certain data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used format.
7. Withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent, withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
8. Automated decision-making: as set out in Section 3.3, we do not make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you; investment decisions are always made by humans.   
9. Complain: lodge a complaint with the appropriate data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).

Proof of Identity

We may ask you to provide proof of identity before acting on a request. These rights are subject to the exemptions and limitations set out in GDPR / UK GDPR: for example, when responding to an access request we may redact information that would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others (including another person's personal data, or confidential business information and trade secrets), but we will not rely on this to refuse a request outright, and we will always provide you with as much of your information as the law allows.

9. How We Protect Your Information

We work hard to protect you from unauthorised access to, or alteration, disclosure, or destruction of, your personal information, and we monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks. However, we cannot promise that your information will always remain secure.

If you believe that your information is no longer secure, please notify us immediately at privacy@openseedvc.com.

10. How Long We Retain Your Information

For funding applications that do not progress, we retain application materials, meeting recordings and transcripts for up to five years from our last interaction with you, so that we can maintain accurate records of our evaluation process and consider any future applications you make in context. Where discussions progress to an investment, information is retained for the life of the investment and any period required by law thereafter. If you ask us to delete your data sooner, we will do so unless one of the exceptions below applies.

1. we must keep it to comply with applicable law (for instance, some “traffic data” is kept for one year to comply with statutory data retention obligations);

2. we must keep it to evidence our compliance with applicable law (for instance, records of consents to our Terms, Privacy Policy and other similar consents are kept for five years);

3. there is an outstanding issue, claim or dispute requiring us to keep the relevant information until it is resolved; or

4. the information must be kept for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud prevention

Keep in mind that even though our systems are designed to carry out data deletion processes according to the above guidelines, we cannot promise that all data will be deleted within a specific time frame due to technical constraints.

11. Privacy Policy Changes

This policy may change over time. We will notify you about any material changes so that you have time to review the changes.

Contact Us

 If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us on privacy@openseedvc.com