Terms of use

Backed.Ventures (the "Platform") is operated by Sardo Group FZCO, a company registered in Dubai Silicon Oasis, United Arab Emirates, licence number 28070, TRN 104505506600003 ("we", "us", "our").

These terms form a binding agreement between you and Sardo Group FZCO when you visit the Platform, create an account, submit a pitch, create an investor profile, post in the community or otherwise use the Platform. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

If you use the Platform on behalf of a company or fund, you confirm you have authority to bind it, and "you" includes that organisation.

The Platform is an online advertising and introduction service. Founders publish information about their business and fundraising, and investors browse that information, request access and contact founders.

We are not a broker, dealer, investment adviser, fund manager, arranger, crowdfunding platform, funding portal, bank, payment institution, law firm or accountancy firm. We are not authorised or regulated by any financial services regulator in respect of the Platform. We do not offer, sell, solicit, recommend or arrange any investment, security or financial product, and nothing on the Platform is an offer or invitation to buy or sell securities.

We are not a party to, and have no involvement in, any discussion, negotiation, agreement or transaction between users. Any deal is made solely between the parties to it, at their own risk.

Nothing on the Platform is investment, financial, legal, tax or accounting advice. Obtain independent professional advice before making any decision.

We do not guarantee that any pitch will be viewed, that any investor will respond, that any investor will invest, that any founder will raise capital, or that any particular outcome, return or introduction will result from use of the Platform.

Paying a submission fee buys the advertising listing only. It does not buy, and we do not promise, any investment, introduction, response or result.

All information on the Platform is provided by users. We do not verify, audit, endorse or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, legality or quality of any pitch, deck, profile, claim, valuation, financial projection, track record, message, post or other content.

Founders and investors must each carry out their own independent due diligence on the other party and on any opportunity before sharing confidential information, entering any agreement or transferring any money. This includes identity, authority, legal status, financial standing, regulatory status, source of funds, ownership, and the truth of every claim made.

Investing in early-stage and private companies is high risk. You can lose all the money you invest. Investments are illiquid and may be impossible to sell. Past performance and projections are not reliable indicators of future results.

Information on the Platform may be false, misleading, out of date or fraudulent. Treat unsolicited approaches with caution, never send money to someone solely because of contact made through the Platform, and report suspicious activity to us.

Labels such as "Profile Complete", "Reviewed by Our Team" and "Firm Affiliation Verified" mean only, respectively, that at the time the account holder confirmed an email address and completed the profile fields we require; that our team reviewed and approved the profile; or that our team checked documents showing a connection to the named firm. A verification label is not a check of identity, accreditation, qualifications, regulatory status, source of funds, financial standing or good character, and is not a recommendation, endorsement or guarantee of any kind.

We may add, remove or change verification labels at any time, and may make mistakes. You must not rely on a label.

You must be at least 18 and have legal capacity to contract. You must give accurate, current information, keep your login details secure, and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised use. You are responsible for all activity on your account.

Each person should have one account. We may refuse, suspend or close any account at our discretion, including to protect other users or the Platform.

Founders may have no more than two live public pitches at a time. Investors whose profile is not verified may be subject to viewing limits, which we may change.

Founders pay a one-off submission fee, based on the amount being raised, to publish a pitch. The fee schedule is shown on our pricing page and at checkout, in US dollars. Investors may browse for free, subject to the limits we set.

We may offer promotional prices, such as pre-launch and founding-member early access prices. They apply for the period stated, and prices return to normal afterwards. We may change prices at any time for future submissions.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store card details. You are responsible for any taxes, bank charges or currency conversion costs.

Fees are non-refundable once a pitch is published, except where the law requires otherwise or we decide in our sole discretion to refund in a particular case. If we remove a pitch because it breaches these terms, no refund is due.

You keep ownership of the content you submit. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, process, analyse and distribute it as needed to run, secure, improve and promote the Platform, and to show it to other users in line with the access controls you choose.

You confirm that you own or have the right to submit your content, that it is accurate and not misleading, that it does not infringe anyone's rights, and that you are legally permitted to share it. You are solely responsible for complying with all securities, financial promotion, advertising, anti-money-laundering, sanctions, data protection and other laws that apply to you, including in the places where your pitch can be seen.

Founders must not publish an offer of securities to the public, or make any statement that would breach financial promotion or prospectus rules, through the Platform. Some jurisdictions restrict who may be shown investment opportunities. It is your responsibility to ensure that you only use the Platform lawfully.

The Platform includes tools that use artificial intelligence, including a listing assistant that drafts summaries and tags, and a deck review tool that scores a pitch deck and suggests improvements. Uploading a pitch deck or other document does not by itself send it to any AI provider. Content is sent only when you choose to use an AI tool: for the deck review, you must tick a consent box and press the review button; for the listing assistant, only the notes you type into it are used. When you do, you agree that we may send that content to third-party large language model (LLM) providers, through our AI gateway provider OpenRouter and the model providers it routes to, so that it can be analysed and responded to. Our administrators may also run a deck review on a pitch deck for quality-control or support purposes.

We choose settings intended to prevent those providers from storing your content or using it to train their models, but we cannot control third-party systems and do not guarantee that they will always comply. Do not submit anything you are not willing to have processed in this way. Do not upload personal data of other people, or information you are contractually bound to keep confidential, unless you have the right to do so.

We store AI scores, feedback and extracted information about your pitch. We may use this internally for quality control, research, analytics, product improvement, matching and fraud prevention, and show scores or feedback to you. Deck review feedback is private to the founder. Internal research notes are visible only to our administrators. We may use this information in aggregated or anonymised form for any purpose.

AI output is automated and can be wrong, incomplete, biased or misleading. It is not advice and is not a prediction of whether you will raise money. AI scores are our tool's opinion, not an assessment by an investor, and are not shown to investors unless we say so. You must review everything AI drafts, and you are responsible for any content you choose to publish. We are not liable for AI output or for decisions you make based on it.

Founders choose whether to approve investors' requests to see a full pitch. Information you share with another user is shared at your own risk. We do not sign non-disclosure agreements on behalf of users and do not guarantee that any other user will keep information confidential, even if they promised to. If confidentiality matters to you, put a suitable agreement in place directly with the other party before sharing sensitive information, and do not put highly sensitive information on the Platform.

You must not:

• post false, misleading, fraudulent or unlawful content, or impersonate anyone or misstate your role, affiliation, qualifications or track record
• use the Platform for scams, market manipulation, money laundering, sanctions evasion or any unlawful purpose
• harass, spam or solicit other users, or use the Platform to send bulk unsolicited messages
• scrape, copy, harvest or resell Platform data, investor details or pitch content, or use automated tools to access the Platform without our written permission
• interfere with, probe or attempt to breach the security of the Platform, or introduce malware
• upload files you are not entitled to share, or content that is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene or infringes intellectual property rights
• attempt to avoid viewing limits, fees or access controls

We may remove content, restrict features, suspend or close accounts, and report conduct to the authorities, at any time and without notice or liability.

Posts, comments and messages are the views of their authors, not ours. We do not review them in advance and are not responsible for them. We may remove content, but are not obliged to monitor it. Do not rely on anything posted by a user as advice.

The Platform, its design, software, branding and the compilation of its content, other than user content, belong to us or our licensors. You may use the Platform only as these terms allow. You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer or exploit it except as the law permits.

The Platform relies on third-party services, including hosting, database, authentication, file storage, payment and AI providers, and may link to third-party websites. We do not control them and are not responsible for their availability, content, security or conduct.

The Platform and all content are provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, conditions and representations of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, reliability, non-infringement, availability and uninterrupted or error-free operation. We do not warrant that content is accurate, that users are who they claim to be, or that the Platform is free from viruses or defects.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we, our owners, directors, officers, employees, contractors, affiliates and licensors are not liable for any loss or damage of any kind arising out of or connected with the Platform or these terms, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, misrepresentation or otherwise. This includes, without limitation:

• any investment decision, failed raise, investment loss or lost opportunity
• any inaccurate, false, misleading, fraudulent or incomplete information, statement, pitch, profile, post or message published by any user or generated by AI (misinformation)
• any dealings, agreements, disputes or transactions between users, or any loss caused by another user's acts or omissions
• any breach of confidentiality by another user
• loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill, data or anticipated savings, and any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive loss
• any interruption, error, delay, security incident or loss of data affecting the Platform or third-party services
• any action we take under these terms, including removing content or closing accounts

Where, despite the above, liability cannot be excluded, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims is limited to the greater of the fees you paid to us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, and AED 500.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited under applicable law, such as liability for our own fraud or wilful misconduct, or any rights you have that cannot be waived.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us, our owners, directors, officers, employees, contractors and affiliates against all claims, losses, liabilities, damages, penalties, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your content, your use of the Platform, your breach of these terms or of any law, or your dealings with other users.

You may stop using the Platform and ask us to close your account at any time by emailing us. We may suspend or end your access or remove any content at any time, with or without notice, for any reason, including breach of these terms. Sections that by their nature should continue to apply after termination will do so.

Our Privacy policy and Cookie policy explain how we handle personal data and cookies. They form part of these terms.

We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the Platform, and may update these terms at any time by posting the new version with a new date. Continued use after a change means you accept it. If you do not accept the change, stop using the Platform.

These terms are the entire agreement between you and us about the Platform. If a part is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply. We may transfer our rights and obligations to another company. You may not transfer yours without our consent. Our failure to enforce a right is not a waiver. We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, agency, employment or fiduciary relationship between you and us.

We may give notices by email, by posting on the Platform or through your account.

These terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or the Platform are governed by the laws of the Emirate of Dubai and the federal laws of the United Arab Emirates applicable in Dubai. The courts of Dubai have exclusive jurisdiction, except that we may seek urgent relief in any court. Please contact us first at the email below so we can try to resolve any concern informally.

Questions about these terms: hello@backed.ventures, or write to Sardo Group FZCO at the address below.