Privacy Policy

01Who We Are

For the data described here we are the data controller under the GDPR and the Data Fiduciary under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act). Our contact details and Grievance Officer are listed at the end of this policy.

02Whose Data This Covers

• People who appear in company information we collect from public sources, such as founders or executives named in official filings. Most of these people have never used AlphaScout, which is why we explain it here.
• Our customers and website visitors: people who sign up, buy a plan or contact us.

03Company Data from Public Sources

AlphaScout profiles companies, not people. We collect facts about companies: name, website, description, sector, country, launch and funding announcements, hiring, and accelerator or fund backing. Personal data appears only in a business context:

• names and roles of executives listed in official public filings (such as SEC Form D);
• a company's own public social media handles;
• names that appear in published news headlines.

We never collect:

• e-mail addresses or phone numbers: they are removed from everything we store;
• usernames of people posting in public communities;
• sole traders from business registries (we take limited companies only);
• anything behind a login, paywall or bot protection, or anything a site's robots.txt asks us not to read (how our crawler behaves is set out on the AlphaScoutBot page).

Sources include launch platforms and product directories, accelerator and fund portfolio pages, SEC filings, official business registries, public job boards, developer ecosystems and startup news. The sources we read in each country are shown on the coverage map, and we will send the full list, with what each source contributes, on request.

04Customers and Visitors

• Account details: your name, work e-mail and organisation, and when you accepted our Terms and this policy (and which version).
• E-mail updates: only if you tick the box (at sign-up or in Settings): new hidden gems, product news and offers. We record when you opted in. Unsubscribe from any update with one click, or in Settings; that clears the record.
• Billing: payments are handled by Dodo Payments, the merchant of record, which receives your name, e-mail, billing address and any tax ID you give at checkout. We receive the payment status and limited details such as the card type and last four digits, never your full card number.
• Usage: the pages and searches you use, exports and API calls, recorded to keep the service secure and working, to enforce fair use, and to assess refund requests.
• Requests and messages: what you send us through our forms, including your e-mail address so we can reply, your company and phone number if you give them, and your IP address to protect the forms from abuse.
• Cookies and storage: see Cookies below. Analytics runs only if you accept it.
• AI scout: the questions you ask the AI scout are sent to Groq to generate the answer, together with the database results it looks up. We don't store the conversation; it stays in your browser tab.

05Cookies

Essential (no consent needed, because the site can't work without them):

• alphascout.session_token and alphascout.session_data: keep you signed in (up to 30 days);
• alphascout_consent: remembers your cookie choice (180 days);
• sidebar_state: whether the app sidebar is open (7 days), and your light or dark theme (stored in your browser).

Analytics (only if you accept): Google Analytics sets _ga and _ga_<id> for up to 13 months to count visits and see which pages help. Advertising features and Google signals are switched off. Nothing from Google loads until you accept, and you can change your mind any time with “Cookie Settings” in the footer (or in Settings once signed in); withdrawing deletes those cookies.

We use no advertising cookies and never sell data.

06Why We Use It

• Company data is processed for business-to-business market research and investment sourcing, on the basis of our legitimate interests (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). We keep it to what investors need, make objecting easy, and make no automated decisions about individuals: AlphaScout scores companies, never people.
• Customer data is processed to provide the service you signed up for, to bill you, to meet our legal obligations such as tax records, and to keep AlphaScout secure. E-mail updates are sent only with your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a), India's DPDP Act), which you can withdraw at any time; service e-mails such as sign-in links, receipts and account notices are part of the service.

07Who We Share It With

We never sell personal data. We share it only with:

• our customers, who are investors using AlphaScout (company data only);
• Groq, an AI provider we use to categorise companies (company-level public information only) and to answer your AI scout questions;
• Dodo Payments, to process payments and subscriptions and to calculate and remit tax;
• Google, if you choose “Continue with Google” to sign in, and for Google Analytics only if you accept analytics cookies;
• Resend, which delivers our e-mails (sign-in links, receipts, alerts);
• hosting and database providers that process data on our behalf under data-processing agreements;
• authorities, when the law requires it.

08International Transfers

Our providers may process data outside your country, including in India, the United States and the European Union. Where the law requires it, we use appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

09How Long We Keep It

• Raw page captures: 90 days. Request logs: 30 days.
• Company records and signals: while they stay relevant to early-stage investing.
• Opt-out records: indefinitely, so we never collect you again.
• Customer accounts: while your account is open, then deleted unless we must keep them.
• Billing records: as long as tax and accounting laws require.
• Requests made through our privacy form: kept as a record of how we handled them.
• Messages sent through the contact form: 2 years after we last handled them; the IP address recorded with a message after 90 days.

10Security

We encrypt data in transit, limit access to people who need it, and keep raw captures for no longer than 90 days. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the relevant authority as the law requires.

11Your Rights

Whichever law applies to you, you can ask us to:

• tell you what personal data we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct, complete or update it;
• erase it, and stop collecting it in future;
• stop or restrict processing, or object to it;
• under the DPDP Act, nominate someone to exercise your rights if you die or become incapacitated.

An erasure also adds you or your company to a permanent suppression list, so the data is not collected again. We answer within one month and may ask you to confirm the request is yours. You can also complain to your data-protection authority; in India, after using our grievance process, to the Data Protection Board of India.

12Children

AlphaScout is a business service for people aged 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect children's data.

13Changes to This Policy

We will update this policy when our practices change and show the new effective date at the top. For material changes we will notify customers by e-mail or in the product.

14Grievance Officer and Contact

Our Grievance Officer's name and contact details will be published here before AlphaScout accepts payments. Until then, use the request form and we will respond within the timelines below.

Phone

+971 56 148 5811

15Make a Request

Tell us what your request is about. A company website is the most reliable way for us to find everything linked to it.