Legal

Privacy Policy

Introduction

UpdatePilot ("we," "us," "our") operates updatepilot.ai and related services (collectively, the "Service"). UpdatePilot helps startup founders send investor updates and helps investors discover and monitor companies. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect information when you use our Service.

By using UpdatePilot, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

Definitions

Founder — A user who creates and sends investor updates through UpdatePilot.

Investor — A user who browses, subscribes to, or receives updates from founders on UpdatePilot.

Update — A monthly investor update created by a founder, which may include metrics, narrative, highlights, lowlights, asks, and evidence.

Public Profile — A founder's opt-in discovery page visible to anyone browsing UpdatePilot.

Full Access — A permission level explicitly granted by a founder to a specific investor, allowing that investor to see the founder's complete update data including exact financials.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Account Information

When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, company name (for founders), fund or firm name (for investors), and password. If you sign up via a third-party authentication provider (e.g., Google), we receive basic profile information from that provider.

1.2 Founder Update Data

Founders provide the following data when composing updates: key performance indicators (KPIs) such as MRR, runway, burn rate, headcount, and custom metrics; narrative text describing monthly progress; highlights, lowlights, and asks; and evidence attachments including links, screenshots, quotes, and uploaded files.

1.3 Integration Data

Founders may connect third-party services to automatically populate metrics. When connected, we receive the specific data points needed for investor updates — nothing more.

• Stripe / ChartMogul — Revenue metrics (MRR, churn rate, subscriber counts). We do not access individual customer records or payment card data.
• Mercury / Brex — Account balances, monthly burn, and runway calculations. We do not access individual transaction details, payee information, or account numbers.
• Google Analytics / Mixpanel — Aggregate usage metrics (DAU, MAU, session counts, conversion rates). We do not access individual user-level analytics or personally identifiable visitor data.
• CSV and Google Sheets — Any data the founder explicitly chooses to import.

We access only the minimum data necessary from each integration. Founders can disconnect any integration at any time from their dashboard, and we stop receiving data from that source immediately.

1.4 MCP Server Data

UpdatePilot offers MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that allow AI assistants like Claude Desktop and OpenClaw to interact with UpdatePilot on a user's behalf. When using the MCP server, the AI assistant sends commands to UpdatePilot's API using the user's personal API token. We process the same data we would process if the user interacted directly through our web interface. We do not store the contents of conversations between users and their AI assistants. The MCP server acts as a pass-through — it translates AI assistant commands into API calls and returns responses. No conversation logs, prompts, or AI-generated intermediary text are stored by UpdatePilot.

1.5 Investor Activity Data

For investors, we collect browsing activity on UpdatePilot (companies viewed, profiles visited), subscription and access request history, search queries performed on the platform, saved alerts and watchlist configurations, and portfolio groupings.

1.6 Email and Communication Data

When founders send updates via UpdatePilot's email delivery, we collect delivery status (sent, delivered, bounced), open tracking (whether and when a recipient opened the email), click tracking (whether and when a recipient clicked a link), and recipient email addresses provided by the founder. We use this data to provide founders with engagement analytics and investor engagement scoring.

1.7 Usage and Device Data

We automatically collect IP address (anonymized for analytics), browser type and version, device type (desktop, mobile, tablet), pages visited and features used, session duration and frequency, and referring URLs.

1.8 Payment Information

Payment processing is handled by Stripe. We do not store credit card numbers, bank account numbers, or other payment instrument details on our servers. We retain only a Stripe customer ID, subscription plan and status, and billing history (dates and amounts).

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to operate and improve the Service, including:

• Generating AI-powered update drafts from founder-provided metrics and narrative
• Tracking metric trends over time (month-over-month, 3-month, 6-month)
• Maintaining streak tracking and sending consistency nudges
• Generating Year-in-Review summaries from accumulated monthly data
• Delivering email updates to investor recipients
• Providing engagement analytics (open rates, click rates, engagement scores)
• Powering investor search, discovery, and alerting features
• Processing payments and managing subscriptions
• Sending transactional communications (account confirmations, streak reminders, access requests)
• Enforcing our Terms of Service and preventing abuse

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use founder financial data to train machine learning models. AI draft generation uses only the individual founder's own data within their own session — your metrics are never combined with or exposed to other users' data during AI processing.

3. The Three-Tier Visibility Model

UpdatePilot's core privacy architecture is the founder-controlled three-tier visibility model. Founders decide exactly what investors can see at each level.

3.1 Public Tier

If a founder opts into a public discovery profile, the following may be visible to anyone browsing UpdatePilot: company name and sector, team size (displayed as a range, not exact number), update streak length, and optionally, highlights, metric ranges (e.g., "$10k–50k MRR"), and growth direction (up/down).

Founders choose which optional fields appear on their public profile. Public profiles never display exact KPI values, cash or burn figures, runway, lowlights, or evidence.

3.2 Subscriber Tier

When an investor subscribes to a founder's profile (no approval required), they additionally see trend magnitudes (e.g., "~25% growth"), full update narrative text, asks (what the founder is looking for), and the update archive. Founders can see who has subscribed to their profile. Subscribing does not grant access to exact financial figures or sensitive context.

3.3 Full Access Tier

Founders explicitly grant full access to specific investors. This is equivalent to being on the founder's private investor email list. Full-access investors can additionally see exact KPI values, cash, burn, and runway figures, all lowlights and context, the evidence library, and metric annotations. Founders can revoke full access at any time.

3.4 Founder Control

Founders are always in control. No data is made public without the founder's explicit opt-in. Founders can disable their public profile at any time. Founders can see every investor who has viewed, subscribed to, or requested access to their profile. Founders can remove any subscriber or revoke any full-access grant. If a founder deletes their account, all associated data is removed from public and investor views immediately.

4. How We Share Information

4.1 With Other Users (Per the Visibility Model)

Founder data is shared with investors only according to the three-tier visibility model described above. We never share data beyond the tier a founder has configured.

4.2 With Service Providers

We use third-party service providers to operate the Service. These providers process data on our behalf under contractual obligations to protect it. Our providers include Stripe (payment processing), email delivery providers (sending investor updates), cloud hosting providers (infrastructure), and analytics providers (anonymized usage data). We do not share founder financial metrics with any service provider for their own purposes.

4.3 With AI Processing

When generating AI-powered drafts or summaries, founder data is processed using large language model APIs. This data is sent only for the specific generation request, is not used to train the AI provider's models (we use API configurations that opt out of training), and is not retained by the AI provider beyond the request-response cycle.

4.4 Legal Requirements

We may disclose information if required to do so by law, subpoena, or court order, or if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request.

4.5 Business Transfers

If UpdatePilot is acquired, merged, or sells substantially all of its assets, user data may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify affected users via email or prominent notice on our website at least 30 days before any such transfer, and this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to the transferred data.

5. Data Retention

Active accounts — We retain your data for as long as your account is active and the Service is in use.

Update history — Founder update data is retained for the lifetime of the account to support features like Year-in-Review, trend tracking, and historical archives.

Integration data — Metric snapshots imported from integrations are retained as part of the update history. We do not maintain a live connection to integrated services between update cycles.

Email tracking data — Open and click tracking data is retained for 24 months, then aggregated into summary statistics.

Deleted accounts — When you delete your account, we begin removing your personal data within 30 days. Some data may persist in encrypted backups for up to 90 days before being fully purged. Public profile data and shared update data are removed from investor views immediately upon account deletion.

Investor activity — Browsing history and search queries are retained for 12 months, then deleted.

6. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data, including:

• Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) for all data transmitted between your browser or MCP client and our servers
• Encryption at rest (AES-256) for stored data
• API token authentication with per-user scoping — tokens grant access only to the authenticated user's own data
• Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments
• Access controls limiting employee access to user data on a need-to-know basis
• Secure deletion procedures for removed accounts and revoked access

MCP Server security — API tokens used by MCP servers are scoped to the individual user. A founder's token cannot access another founder's data. Tokens can be revoked instantly from the dashboard.

Integration credentials — OAuth tokens for third-party integrations (Stripe, Mercury, etc.) are stored encrypted and are never exposed through the API or MCP server.

7. Your Rights and Choices

7.1 Access and Portability

You can export all of your data at any time from your dashboard. Founders can export their complete update history, metrics, and contact lists. Investors can export their watchlists, saved searches, and portfolio data.

7.2 Correction

You can update your account information and correct any inaccuracies at any time through your dashboard.

7.3 Deletion

You can delete your account at any time. This will remove your data as described in Section 5. To delete your account, go to Settings → Account → Delete Account, or email privacy@updatepilot.ai.

7.4 Opt-Out of Public Profile

Founders can disable their public discovery profile at any time. When disabled, no company data appears in search results or public browsing.

7.5 Email Tracking

If you are an investor receiving updates and wish to opt out of open and click tracking, you can contact us at privacy@updatepilot.ai. Note that some engagement data may still be collected at the email delivery infrastructure level.

7.6 Integration Disconnection

Founders can disconnect any third-party integration at any time. Disconnecting stops future data imports. Previously imported metric snapshots remain part of your update history unless you explicitly delete them.

7.7 Communication Preferences

You can manage notification preferences (streak reminders, access request alerts, subscription notifications) from your dashboard under Settings → Notifications. Transactional emails related to account security cannot be opted out of.

8. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

UpdatePilot uses cookies and similar technologies for session authentication (keeping you logged in), remembering your preferences (theme, notification settings), analytics (understanding how the Service is used), and security (preventing fraud and abuse).

We do not use advertising cookies or share cookie data with advertising networks. You can control cookie settings through your browser. Disabling cookies may affect the functionality of the Service.

9. Children's Privacy

UpdatePilot is designed for business professionals and is not intended for use by individuals under 16 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If we learn that we have collected data from a child under 16, we will delete it promptly. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at privacy@updatepilot.ai.

10. International Data Transfers

UpdatePilot is based in the United States. If you are accessing the Service from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States. We take appropriate measures to ensure your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy regardless of where it is processed.

For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with data protection laws, we process data based on contractual necessity (providing the Service you signed up for), legitimate interest (improving the Service, preventing fraud), and consent (where required by applicable law, such as for optional email tracking).

You may have additional rights under your local data protection laws, including the right to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and the right to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights, contact privacy@updatepilot.ai.

11. California Privacy Rights (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose; request deletion of your personal information; opt out of the sale of personal information (we do not sell personal information); and not be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights.

To submit a request, email privacy@updatepilot.ai or use the tools available in your dashboard under Settings → Privacy.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email (using the address associated with your account) or by placing a prominent notice on our website at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, contact us at:

UpdatePilot
Email: privacy@updatepilot.ai
Website: updatepilot.ai

For data protection inquiries from the EEA or UK, you may also contact your local data protection authority.

Summary of Data Practices