Terms and Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

moat (foundersmoat.com, the Moat Discord community and the Moat Network) is run by PACT APP LTD, a company registered in England and Wales ("we", "us"). We are the controller of the personal data described here. For anything about these terms or your data, email alex@masabuild.com.

2. Terms of use

By using foundersmoat.com, taking the Moat Score, applying to moat or joining our events, you agree to these terms.

The Moat Score is guidance, not advice. It is an automated, AI-assisted estimate based on what you tell us. It isn't investment, financial or legal advice, and it doesn't promise any outcome with investors.
Your material stays yours. You keep all rights in your answers, pitch deck and demo. You give us permission to store and process them to score your startup, follow up with you and run moat, as described below.
Only share what you're allowed to. Don't upload anything you don't have the right to share, such as someone else's confidential information.
Use it fairly. Don't misuse the site, try to break or overload it, scrape it, or try to manipulate your score.
Our liability. We provide the site and the Moat Score "as is". We aren't liable for decisions you make based on your score, or for indirect losses. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law.
Law. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

3. What we collect

When	What
Moat Score	Your answers (startup name, what you do, your advantage, your background and your team's, location, traction figures), your email, and your phone number and LinkedIn profile link if you give them. If you add them: your pitch deck, your demo video and a transcript of its audio.
Applying to moat	Your name, phone number, Instagram and LinkedIn, your answers, and whether you booked a call.
Event sign-ups	Your email, and your phone number if you want text reminders.
The Discord community	Your Discord name and ID, the name, company and contact details you give when you verify, and activity counts (number of messages and time in voice channels, never what you say).
Visiting the site	Pages viewed, where you came from (for example a link someone shared), your country and device type. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies: a visitor is counted with a code made from your IP address and browser that changes every day and can't be turned back into either.

4. How we use it, and why we're allowed to

To give you your Moat Score and results, including who in moat could help you. We do this because you asked us to (performing our agreement with you).
To follow up with you about your score, your application and moat, and to keep a record of who we've met (our contacts system). This is in our legitimate interests in running a founder community; you can object at any time.
To send event invites and text reminders, only if you tick the box for them (your consent). See section 8.
To run, secure and improve the site, including aggregate analytics and checking our scoring is fair and consistent (legitimate interests).
To meet legal obligations, where we have to.

We never sell your data, and we never share it with third parties for their own marketing.

5. How the AI reads your startup

The Moat Score uses AI (Anthropic's Claude) to read your answers and any pitch deck you add, and to rate your startup on fixed criteria. Your demo video's audio is turned into text by Groq's speech-to-text service. Our own code then turns those ratings into your scores. The AI providers process your material only to give us the result, under business terms that don't let them use it for anything else.

Your score is automated, but it has no legal or similarly significant effect on you: it's guidance, and a person at moat makes any decision about membership or introductions. If you think your score is wrong, email us and a person will look at it.

We use these service providers to run moat. They act on our instructions and must keep your data secure.

Vercel: hosts the website and stores uploaded files.
Neon and Supabase: databases.
Hetzner: hosts the Moat Network and our community tools.
Anthropic and Groq: AI reading, scoring and transcription (section 5).
Google: calendar invites for events.
Twilio: text reminders.
Discord: the community itself.
GREEN-API: notifies our team on WhatsApp when someone books a call or signs up for an event.

Inside moat, only our team sees your contact details and files. Other members may see your name and what you've shared about yourself in the community, and only if you're a member.

Some of these providers are in the United States. Where your data leaves the UK, we rely on the UK's adequacy decisions (including the UK-US data bridge) or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum to protect it.

7. How long we keep it

We keep your details for as long as you're in touch with moat and for a reasonable time after, so we can follow up and keep a record of who we've met. If we haven't heard from you for two years, we delete or anonymise your details unless we need them for a legal reason. You can ask us to delete your data, including your pitch deck and demo, at any time.

8. Invites, texts and opting out

We only send event invites and text reminders if you've ticked the box for them. Agreeing to these terms doesn't sign you up. Every invite has an unsubscribe link, every text can be stopped by replying STOP, and you can email us to opt out of anything.

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

give you a copy of your data
correct it
delete it
restrict or object to how we use it
move it to another service
have a person review an automated result

You can also withdraw any consent you've given. Email alex@masabuild.com and we'll reply within a month. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

10. Changes and contact

If we change these terms, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change is significant, we'll tell you before it applies.

Questions: alex@masabuild.com, PACT APP LTD.