Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address and password (stored only as a secure hash). If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google.
• Your choices: whether you joined as an explorer or a founder, what brings you to Hatchbase, and any preferences you set.
• What you publish: company profiles, logos, cover images, team members (names, roles, photos and LinkedIn links), demo videos, screenshots, pitch decks, reviews and founder replies.
• Demo requests: the time you choose, your organisation, your note, how you found the company and your time zone.
• What you search for: the requests you type or speak into AI Match and the searches you save.
• Activity: profiles you view, save or follow, and which companies appear in your AI Match results. We use this to show founders how their profile is doing and to rank trending companies.
• Technical data: IP address, browser and device type, collected in server logs to keep the service secure and working.

2. How we use it

• To run your account and the features you use: profiles, AI Match, reviews, saved companies, watchlists and demo requests.
• To send emails you need, such as confirming your address, resetting your password, demo request updates, reminders and alerts for searches you saved, and push notifications if you turn them on.
• To show founders anonymous counts of views, saves and AI Match appearances. Founders don't see who viewed their profile.
• To keep Hatchbase safe: moderating reviews, preventing spam and abuse, and investigating problems.
• To improve Hatchbase, for example by understanding which searches return poor results.

We use your data because you asked us to provide the service, because we have a legitimate interest in keeping it safe and useful, or because the law requires it. We don't sell your data and we don't show ads.

3. What's public

Company profiles, including pitch decks, team members, metrics and funding details, are public once published. Reviews are public and show the reviewer's name. Please don't put anything in a profile or review that you want to keep private.

Your email address, demo requests, saved companies, searches and preferences are never shown publicly.

4. Who we share it with

• Founders, when you request a demo: they see your name, email address, organisation, note and the times you chose, so they can arrange the meeting.
• Amazon Web Services, which hosts Hatchbase, stores files and sends email. Our servers are in the European Union (Stockholm, Sweden).
• Anthropic, which processes the text of AI Match requests, together with public profile information, to understand what you're looking for and explain each match. Anthropic doesn't use this data to train its models.
• Google, if you choose to sign in with Google. In some browsers, such as Chrome, speaking into AI Match uses your browser's speech recognition service, which may send your audio to the browser maker.
• Push notification services run by your browser maker, if you turn on notifications.
• Authorities, if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users and the public.

These providers process data only on our instructions and only for the purposes above.

5. Cookies and local storage

We use one essential cookie to keep you signed in. Your browser also remembers your light or dark theme and whether you've dismissed the install prompt. We don't use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

6. How long we keep it

We keep your account data while your account is open. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete or anonymise your personal data within 30 days, except where we must keep it longer for legal reasons or to resolve a dispute. Server logs are kept for up to 90 days.

7. Your rights

You can ask to see the personal data we hold about you, correct it, receive a copy, object to how we use it, or have it deleted. You can edit your profile, reviews and preferences yourself at any time, stop saved-search alerts by deleting the saved search, and turn push notifications off in your account.

To make a request, email hello@lincolnsolution.ae from the address on your account. We reply within 30 days.

8. Security

Data travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS), passwords are stored as hashes, our database is not reachable from the internet, and access to production systems is limited to the people who run them. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.

9. Children

Hatchbase is for people aged 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from children. If you think a child has created an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

10. Changes to this policy

If we make important changes, we'll update the date at the top and tell signed-in users by email or in the app before the change takes effect.

11. Contact

Questions about privacy: hello@lincolnsolution.ae, or see our contact page.