1. About these Terms
Vanelo is a platform owned and operated by PitchHub Ltd (company number 13688172), registered office at Alpha Works, 21st Floor, Alpha Tower, Suffolk Street Queensway, Birmingham B1 1TT (“PitchHub”, “we”, “us” or “our”). These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern access to and use of the Vanelo website and platform (together, the “Platform”).
By creating an account, or by otherwise accessing or using the Platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you are creating an account on behalf of a business, you confirm that you have authority to bind that business, and references to “you” in these Terms include that business.
If you do not agree to these Terms, you should not use the Platform.
2. What is Vanelo?
Vanelo is a fundraising preparation, investor outreach and deal discovery platform designed primarily for founders raising external investment for their business. It provides tools to help founders assess and improve their fundraising readiness, prepare a funding round, identify and engage investors, and make their fundraising proposition discoverable to investors. Investors can use the Platform to discover, review and shortlist fundraising opportunities and to communicate with founders. Advisors can use the Platform to deliver Expert Support services purchased by founders.
Vanelo is intended for founders, investors and advisors wherever they are based. PitchHub is a UK company and these Terms are governed by the law described in section 24 regardless of where you access the Platform from, but nothing in these Terms is intended to remove any protection you are entitled to under mandatory local law that cannot be excluded by agreement.
Vanelo is a technology platform. It is not a bank, broker, dealer, payment institution, investment exchange or investment adviser, and it is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Vanelo does not provide legal, tax, accounting, financial or investment advice, and nothing on the Platform should be treated as such advice. Vanelo does not itself buy, sell, arrange, execute or take any part in any investment transaction, and does not hold, handle or have custody of client money or securities. Section 14 (No guarantee of outcome) sets this out in more detail and should be read carefully before you use the Platform.
3. Who Can Use Vanelo
The Platform supports four types of account: Founders, Investors, Advisors and Administrators.
- A Founder manages a Business profile, uses the readiness and round preparation tools, identifies and tracks investors, builds and submits Showcase campaigns, communicates with investors, and purchases Expert Support.
- An Investor creates a profile, completes the available verification process, browses and shortlists live campaigns, accesses permitted documents, and messages founders.
- An Advisor delivers Expert Support services assigned following a founder's purchase, and may request access to specific founder information, which the founder must approve before access is given.
- An Administrator is a PitchHub team member who operates and moderates the Platform, including reviewing Showcase campaigns, managing investor verification, and configuring pricing and other settings.
To use the Platform you must be at least 18 years old and capable of forming a binding contract. One Founder account is permitted per Business; a Founder account must not be used to manage more than one separate business.
4. Registration and Your Account
You must provide accurate, current and complete information when you register and keep it up to date. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that takes place under your account. You must tell us promptly if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your account.
We may decline to open an account, or may request further information before allowing full access to the Platform, at our discretion.
5. Subscriptions and Fees
Certain parts of the Platform are subject to fees. Current fees are shown in the Platform and may include a Founder subscription, billed monthly or annually, a one-time Lifetime Deal giving permanent access to certain Founder features, a Showcase review fee, a Showcase re-review fee (payable if you edit content after your campaign has gone live), and fees for Expert Support services, which vary by service and are shown at the point of purchase. Investor access is currently free; this may change in the future, and we will give reasonable notice before introducing a fee for Investors.
Where we offer a Lifetime Deal, it provides permanent access to the Founder features included in that deal at the time of purchase, for as long as PitchHub continues to operate the Platform, and is not reduced by later changes to pricing or to the fees charged to other customers. If PitchHub discontinues the Platform entirely, Lifetime Deal access ends at that point, in the same way as every other account’s access. If we materially change the features available to Founder subscribers generally, we will keep Lifetime Deal holders at a level of access at least equivalent to what they originally purchased. Lifetime Deal access does not prevent suspension or termination of an account under section 19 on the same basis as any other account.
Fees may be changed from time to time; changes will not affect fees already paid but will apply to future charges. Payments are processed by a third-party payment provider; we do not store full payment card details ourselves. Except where required by law (including applicable consumer protection law), fees already paid are non-refundable.
Fees are set and charged in the currency shown at checkout. If the Platform displays an equivalent amount in another currency for your convenience, that figure is indicative only; the amount actually charged, and any currency conversion or transaction fee applied by your card issuer or our payment provider, may differ slightly.
If a payment fails or a subscription lapses, we may suspend or limit your access to the relevant part of the Platform until payment is made.
6. Information you Provide About your Business
As a Founder, you are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the Business Details, Round Details, and other information you enter into the Platform, including information reused across the Investability Assessment, Valuation Range, Round Setup, Investor Outreach and Showcase. You should keep this information current and correct it promptly if it changes or if you become aware it is inaccurate.
7. Readiness Tools: Investability Assessment and Valuation Range
The Investability Assessment produces a score, tier and report based on your answers to a structured questionnaire, using Vanelo's own scoring methodology. The Valuation Range tool produces an estimated valuation range using recognised methods applied to information you provide and to benchmark data maintained within the Platform.
These tools are automated and generate estimates only. They are not a professional valuation, are not investment advice, and do not guarantee that any figure produced reflects what an investor would actually offer or pay, or that your business will be viewed as investable by any particular investor. You should treat these outputs as a starting point and, where the outcome matters to a decision you are making, seek independent professional advice. These tools use automated processing, as explained in our Privacy Policy.
8. Deal Room and Documents you Upload
The Deal Room lets you upload, organise and share documents relating to your business and funding round, and lets you control who can view or download each document. You are responsible for the accuracy and legality of anything you upload, and for having the right to upload and share it, including obtaining any consents needed from other people whose information appears in a document.
We do not review the content of documents you upload. Supported file types and size limits are shown in the Platform; replacing a document does not preserve the earlier version, so you should keep your own copies of anything you may need later.
Sharing a document with another user through the Deal Room does not by itself create any confidentiality obligation on the person you share it with beyond what these Terms provide. If you need a recipient to be legally bound to keep information confidential, you are responsible for putting your own confidentiality or non-disclosure arrangement in place with them before sharing.
9. Investor Outreach and the Investor Database
The Automated Target List and Investor Database use structured criteria to help you identify potentially relevant investors. Investor records come from investors' own profiles, publicly available sources and research by our team (see section 2 of our Privacy Policy). Investor records are provided for your use in connection with your own fundraising and must not be copied, scraped, resold or used for any other purpose, including unrelated marketing. We do not guarantee that any investor record is accurate, current, or that any investor will respond to or engage with you.
10. Showcase Campaigns
A Showcase campaign can only be submitted for review once all required fields are complete and the applicable review fee has been paid. Our review of a campaign checks that it meets our content requirements; it is not an endorsement of your business, an assessment of investment merit, or a financial promotion approved by an authorised person. Approval of a campaign does not publish it, and you control when an approved campaign goes live.
Once a campaign is live, its reviewed content is treated as final. If you want to change reviewed content, including replacing a document, you will need to pay the re-review fee and have the revision approved before it replaces the version investors can see. We may reject a campaign or ask you to revise it, and may remove or suspend a live campaign that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms or applicable law.
We do not guarantee that a Showcase campaign will attract investor interest, shortlists, messages or investment of any kind.
11. Communication Between Founders and Investors
Only a verified Investor may start the first conversation with a Founder about a live Showcase campaign; after that, both parties may exchange messages through the Platform. You must use messaging for genuine fundraising-related communication and must not use it to send unsolicited marketing, spam, or content that breaches these Terms.
Vanelo provides the means for founders and investors to communicate and does not participate in, endorse, or take responsibility for the content of those conversations or for any agreement, arrangement or investment that founders and investors may reach with each other outside the Platform. Any dispute between a founder and an investor is a matter between them.
12. Investor Verification
Investor accounts may show a verification status of Pending, Verified or Rejected. Verification consists of a basic check of identity and organisation details; it is not an accreditation, suitability, source-of-funds, or anti-money-laundering check of the kind a regulated financial services firm would carry out, and it is not a guarantee that a person or organisation shown as Verified has the funds, authority or genuine intention to invest. Founders should carry out their own reasonable checks before relying on any investor's stated status or interest.
13. Advisors and Expert Support
Expert Support services (such as round advisory, pitch deck design, financial modelling, legal advisory, due diligence preparation, investor outreach support and go-to-market advisory) are purchased by a Founder and delivered by an Advisor assigned following purchase. An Advisor may request access to specific information in your account to deliver the service; that access is granted only if you approve it, is limited to what you approve, and can be revoked by you at any time.
The scope of each Expert Support service is described at the point of purchase. Purchasing Expert Support does not constitute regulated financial, legal or tax advice from PitchHub, and does not guarantee any particular outcome from the service or from your fundraise.
14. No Guarantee of Outcome
Using Vanelo does not guarantee that you will secure funding, investment, investor interest, or any other particular outcome. Vanelo does not vet, endorse, verify or guarantee any Founder, Business, Investor, Advisor, or the accuracy of any Investability Score, Valuation Range, Automated Target List result, or other output generated by the Platform.
Investing in early-stage or private businesses carries a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of some or all of the money invested. Nothing on the Platform is a recommendation to invest in, or to raise funds from, any particular person or business. Founders and Investors are each responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for deciding, with independent professional advice where appropriate, whether to proceed with any fundraising or investment activity.
15. Acceptable Use
You must not use the Platform to:
- provide false, fraudulent or misleading information, including in a Business profile, Investor profile, verification submission, or Showcase campaign;
- upload content you do not have the right to share, or that infringes another person's intellectual property, confidentiality or other rights;
- upload unlawful, defamatory, obscene or harassing material;
- attempt to circumvent the Platform's security, permission or verification features;
- scrape, data-mine or use automated means to extract data from the Platform, including the Investor Database;
- send spam or unsolicited marketing to other users through the Platform;
- impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with any business or organisation;
- interfere with the proper operation of the Platform or attempt to gain unauthorised access to it; or
- use the Platform for any unlawful purpose, including in breach of applicable anti-money-laundering, sanctions or bribery laws.
We may investigate suspected breaches of this section and take appropriate action, including the steps described in section 19 (Suspension and termination).
16. Intellectual Property in the Platform
PitchHub owns, or is licensed to use, all intellectual property rights in the Platform itself, including its software, design, text, graphics, the Vanelo name and branding, and outputs generated by the Platform such as the Investability Score, Valuation Range and Automated Target List results (excluding, in each case, the underlying information you provided). We grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to access and use the Platform in accordance with these Terms. You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer, create derivative works from, or commercially exploit any part of the Platform, and must not remove any proprietary notices.
17. Your Content and Documents
You retain ownership of the Business information, documents, messages and other content you submit to the Platform (“Your Content”). By submitting Your Content, you grant PitchHub a licence to host, store, reproduce and display it as needed to operate the Platform and to make it available to the other users you choose to share it with, in each case in line with your own visibility and permission settings. This licence ends when Your Content is deleted from the Platform, except to the extent a copy is reasonably retained for a period afterwards, or for longer where required by law, as described in our Privacy Policy.
You confirm that you have the necessary rights to submit Your Content and to grant this licence, and that doing so does not infringe any third party's rights or breach any confidentiality obligation you owe to someone else.
18. Third-Party Services
The Platform uses third-party providers for functions such as payment processing and Help/support ticketing, and may link to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy or availability of third-party services or websites, and your use of them is subject to their own terms and policies.
19. Suspension and Termination
You may close your account at any time by deleting it or contacting us through the Help feature. We may suspend or terminate your account, or restrict your access to parts of the Platform, if we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms, provided false information, engaged in unlawful or fraudulent activity, failed to pay a fee when due, or if we are required to do so by law or by a competent authority. Where practical, we will give you notice and an opportunity to resolve the issue before suspending or terminating your account, except where we reasonably consider immediate action is necessary.
On termination, your right to access the Platform ends. We will handle data associated with your account in line with our Privacy Policy, which currently provides for personal data to be deleted or anonymised within 3 months of your account closing, subject to the exceptions described there. Historical Funding Round records may be retained after your account closes or a round is completed, as described in section 7 of our Privacy Policy. Where they remain viewable, personal data in them is removed or restricted as described in the policy.
20. Disclaimers
The Platform is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or completely secure, or that any content on it (including content submitted by other users) is accurate, complete or up to date. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties, whether express or implied, other than those which cannot lawfully be excluded.
21. Liability
Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.
Subject to the paragraph above, we will not be liable to you for any indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, business opportunity, goodwill or anticipated savings, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Platform. Subject to the same paragraph, our total liability to you arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the Platform, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, will not exceed the total fees you have paid to us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or £100 if you have not paid us any fees.
We are not liable for the acts or omissions of other users, including any Founder, Investor or Advisor, or for the outcome of any interaction, agreement or transaction between users, whether reached on or away from the Platform.
22. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify PitchHub against reasonable costs, claims and losses arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Platform, or Your Content, except to the extent caused by our own breach of these Terms or negligence.
23. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes to the Platform or to applicable law. We will post the updated Terms on the Platform and, where a change is material, will take reasonable steps to notify you (such as by email or an in-Platform notice) before it takes effect. Continued use of the Platform after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.
24. Governing Law and Jurisdiction
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and this applies wherever in the world you use the Platform from. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the Platform will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, save that if you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the UK, you may also bring proceedings in your local courts.
If you are a consumer habitually resident in a country outside the UK, choosing English law does not deprive you of any protection given to you by mandatory rules of the law of that country, and nothing in this section prevents you from relying on those protections.
25. Contact Us
Questions about these Terms can be sent through the Help feature in the Platform, by email to hello@vanelo.io, or by writing to us at the address given at the start of these Terms.